Starknet super airdrop has landed, what are the subsequent impacts?

Original author: Haotian

Editor's note: On February 14, Ethereum Layer 2 network Starknet announced the airdrop details of its token STRK. In the first round of token distribution, about 1.3 million wallets will be eligible to receive STRK tokens. Starting from February 20, users can receive STRK airdrops, and the collection period will last for four months until June 20. This STRK airdrop is the most extensive personal token distribution to date. Starknet is also the first L2 project to distribute tokens to Ethereum independent stakers, Ethereum LSD holders, and non-Web3 developers. What impact and changes will this airdrop bring to the Layer 2 landscape? Crypto researcher Haotian shared his thoughts on X, and BlockBeats compiled the full text as follows: In the past two days, @Starknet has launched a super airdrop operation with a total of more than 700 million tokens to 1.3 million addresses, which has almost "evenly treated" every member of the ecosystem at all levels. So, how do you view the subsequent impact of this Starknet airdrop feast? Let me talk about my thoughts:

1) Starknet  has been holding back on the standard, scale and coverage of airdrops, and various scandals and rumors have continued. Many people even thought that they would be collectively "anti-squeezed". In this context, the sudden announcement of more than 1.3 million addresses and 700 million STRKs as eligible has surely made many people overjoyed.

To be honest, as a popular project that has been deeply squeezed, Starknet  's airdrop standard design is really difficult to handle. It is necessary to balance the interests of all parties and avoid the selling pressure of airdrops overshadowing the incentive effect. Therefore, it is difficult to have an absolutely satisfactory result. In the end, Starknet chose to provide a large-scale benefit to early ECMP contributors, GitHub open source developers, Starknet users, etc.

This is probably the final choice of focus projects such as zkSync and LayerZero. When the brand influence reaches a certain level, the most sensible airdrop action is to take place in the sunshine. The difference lies in which criteria will be used to screen out the coin-pulling parties, and which direction will become the preferred object of the project party? For example, Starknet obviously prefers developers and early ECMP contributors. The "coin-pulling" business is at most an increased risk, and it has lost the input-output cost-effectiveness, and it will continue to roll.

2) Previously, I wrote that Starknet's airdrop was a "redemption operation" because the ZK series Layer 2 project has been stuck in the narrative stage of technical advantages for a long time, and the comprehensive data indicators of developer resources, ecological projects, market TVL, user volume, user experience, etc. have not been implemented as expected. In this case, the purpose of using Tokenomics' killer weapon is more to further build and strengthen the ecological market. Obviously, Starknet and zkSync are both anxious about this.

Especially, the overall locked data of Layer 2 exceeds 25.5 B, while the top 5 Layer 2 in terms of brand reputation accounts for less than 0.2 B. How can such data give confidence to subsequent secondary market investors? The issuance of Token subsidies to developers and users can quickly make up for this shortcoming. If you don’t believe that Tokenomics will have such a great magic, you can see it by looking at Blast, whose TVL has exceeded 1.8 billion US dollars before any technology has been implemented.

I personally tend to believe that Tokenomics will bring continuous source power to the ZK ecosystem, especially STRK, which participates in project development and user interaction experience as a gas fee subsidy, and there is still a lot of room for imagination.

3) The Cancun upgrade has a significantly greater market boost for ZK-Rollup than OP-Rollup. If the Cancun upgrade is icing on the cake for OP-Rollup, then it must be a timely help for ZK-Rollup. I have analyzed the reasons before. For the same Blob block capacity, ZK Layer 2 can enlarge the upper limit of Layer 2 TPS, thereby reducing the gas amortization cost. Coupled with the potential gas subsidy war, in theory, more developers and users will flock to the ZK ecosystem to build. Under normal circumstances, the Cancun upgrade will be a turning point for the ZK ecosystem to catch up and counterattack OP in all aspects.

Starknet launched Tokenomics before the Cancun upgrade, which undoubtedly expressed its determination to fight a desperate battle after the Cancun upgrade. If Starknet's Token economics works, it will inevitably promote the issuance of tokens of ZK projects such as zkSync, Scroll, and Linea. Moreover, the potential of ZK technology will ultimately be driven by "applications". The market needs to run a few blockbuster applications such as games to drive the further prosperity of the Starknet market ecology.

4) The current Layer 2 competition landscape has become complex and tense. In the past, Layer projects with first-mover advantages in technology, brand reputation, etc., such as Arbitrum, Starknet, and zkSync, have all been under great pressure from expected landing, while Stack's strategic approach is still the traditional To B's VC narrative thinking is obviously not attractive enough to attract secondary market investors;

At the same time, a large number of new challengers have emerged to try to break the Layer 2 pattern. For example, Metis has taken out decentralized sequencers and native token economies to try to overtake. Manta, ZKFair, Blast, etc. are all trying to counterattack with the power of market, operation and maintenance, and capital.

In addition, Celestia, Altlayer, Espresso, etc. continue to add new variables to the Layer 2 market with modular thinking. The current Layer 2 market can no longer lock in market position with established advantages such as technical strength and capital background. Under rounds of market shocks and competition, the Layer 2 projects that survive must be those with balanced comprehensive strength in all aspects. In the year after Cancun is upgraded, market competition will intensify, and perhaps there will be four new Layer 2 kings.

Note: I was lucky enough to get the ECMP airdrop, which is an incentive for my continuous output of valuable content. Anyway, everyone should have more confidence and expectations for the Layer 2 market.

Original link

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia