You have pending SOL and RFND tokens to claim Token refunds or a path to project transformation

Original Content | Odaily Planet Daily
Author | Wenser


As the ZK airdrop gradually comes to a close amid dissatisfaction, projects like LayerZero and Blast are on their way, but perhaps none are more enticing than the “refund token” that can be claimed with just a few clicks.
Previously, the Solana ecosystem’s Claim Your SOL project allowed users to claim rent for their accounts that were being held by the Solana network; now, a similar project has emerged in the Ethereum L2 network within the popular Base ecosystem –
RefundOnBase
, which also focuses on the concept of “token refunds”. However, this project offers a certain amount of RFND tokens based on the gas consumed by users on the Ethereum network.
In this article, Odaily Planet Daily will briefly introduce and compare these two projects for readers to reference.
(Note: Odaily Planet Daily is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Users should exercise caution when selecting investment targets to ensure asset security.)
Claim Your SOL: You have rent from a closed SPL account waiting for you
According to the
Claim Your SOL project’s official website
, every time a user receives an NFT/token in their wallet, the Solana network creates a specific SPL token account for it. When the user sends or sells the NFT/token to someone else, the account will have 0 NFT/token units. This means that the SPL account remains in your wallet but is no longer useful, and to create an account, users need to pay the rent withheld by the Solana network, which is approximately 0.002 SOL (about $0.3). If users take no action, this rent remains inactive.
Claim Your SOL: “Your account closure intermediary”
The purpose of the Claim Your SOL project is to help users close selected SPL token accounts, with the released rent deposit sent to the user’s wallet balance. To put it simply, it’s like transferring money to someone at the Solana bank every time you interact with a token contract (i.e., a “fee” for opening an account). This project acts as an intermediary that helps you “close the account,” allowing you to receive an “account closure rent.” Of course, as an intermediary, it also needs to “profit” – 20% of the account closure rent will be used as donation funds to support the maintenance and future development of the project’s website.


Official website interface
Natural virality brought by the referral model
It’s worth noting that when users claim the rent for closing their accounts in SOL, they need to go through the project’s “full disclaimer” and sign a transaction before they can receive the locked SOL rent. Specific operational instructions can be found on the
website
.
In addition, the project also has a referral mechanism; sharing the corresponding invitation link allows the invitee to receive 20% of the donated SOL back. (Note: If users do not want to share this portion of SOL with the referrer, they can directly visit the
official project Twitter
or
website link
.)
Impressive results: Nearly 20,000 locked SOL released
At the time of writing, the Claim Your SOL official website interface shows that there are currently 11.75 million accounts participating, with 19,207 SOL SPL token account rents released. This amounts to a substantial $2.785 million in “idle funds,” making it a significant liquidity in this volatile market.


Official website interface
RefundOnBase: Exchange gas consumption for tokens, here’s your RFND
Coincidentally, the Base ecosystem has also introduced a project called RefundOnBase, likely inspired by the unique conditions of the Solana-based Claim Your SOL project. After all, the high gas fees on Ethereum have long been a pain point; as one of the representative ecosystems of L2 networks with low gas costs, the Base ecosystem naturally has an advantage and environment for “token refunds based on gas fees”.
RefundOnBase: If you’ve used Ethereum, you’re our user
According to the
project’s website
, users who spend more than 0.3 ETH in gas on the Ethereum mainnet can receive RFND token rewards. Currently, there are 10,873 wallet addresses linked; over 18,000 users have logged in to participate; there are 199 payment accounts; and a total of 657.43 ETH has been consumed in gas fees.


Website display interface, for reference only
Behind the scenes: Operating principles and token economics overview
Similarly, according to information from its official website, the RFND token is deployed on the Base network, and users can receive the corresponding tokens without gas fees. The contract address is 0x26FB8F2F3b26C750ee34005C1930dEb232940CFe, with a buy/sell tax of 0, a maximum token supply of 10 billion, and a lock-up period of 1 year.


Rough token economics
According to information from
Dexscreener
, after briefly surpassing $0.000005, the RFND token price has steadily declined, currently sitting at $0.00000018, with a remaining circulating market value of just $18.5 thousand.


Official website information interface
Lessons learned: Token refund models differ from Meme coins
To some extent, RFND can be considered a failure by now, as its price is close to zero, and the website’s operation is unstable. This is not the first attempt in the Ethereum and L2 ecosystems.
In December 2023, a project initiated by
Electric Capital
called
Frame
once attracted considerable attention from the market. Operating under the banner of “creating a blockchain network for creators and collectors,” the project would provide corresponding FRAME token airdrops based on the number of NFT projects users participated in and the gas costs incurred. Major players in the NFT space, including Zeneca and Lasercat, both domestically and internationally, were involved.
However, as time passed, the project’s
final post
was dated January 30 of this year. While it was officially stated that the mainnet launch and airdrop application deadline were postponed after community feedback, the project is essentially dead.
Therefore, we can draw some interim lessons from these two projects:
Token refund projects are heavily influenced by blockchain network ecosystems, making it difficult to “create such a mechanism without a corresponding network mechanism”;
Tokens from token refund projects are unlikely to become meme coins, lacking both intentional planning and meme attributes;
Token refund projects strongly rely on the operational marketing rhythm of the project, easily falling into the trap of “dumping tokens once they are claimed,” leading to the spiral death of the project.
This is something we can also glean from the article “Three days of 50x growth, revealing the Base chain’s data DAO token RDAT,” RDAT’s demise was not only due to the project’s ill-considered actions but also the “rapid obsolescence” of the related narrative.
Conclusion: Stay watchful, token refund projects are far from over
Despite the many problems, it is clear that the token refund project track is far from over. If more projects attempt from different perspectives, combining with different market environments and operational rhythms, they may be able to create a unique wave in the cryptocurrency field.
After all, as a hot track in the current market, meme coin projects may also be a potential direction for the transformation of token refund projects.
This means endless possibilities.