Founders Reflections on Starknet Airdrop

Author: Starknet Founder Eli Ben-Sasson
Translation: Odaily Planet Daily Azuma (@azuma.eth)


The first phase application for Starknet’s Provisions airdrop event has concluded. Here, I’d like to share some personal insights. None of the following constitutes investment advice and may not necessarily reflect the views of StarkWare or the Starknet Foundation. DYOR.
What is Starknet? Why STRK?
Starknet is a ZK-Rollup network. We launched Starknet in alpha mode in November 2021, aiming to scale Ethereum using STARKs cryptographic protocols while preserving Ethereum’s core principles such as decentralization, transparency, inclusivity, and security.
The STRK token empowers those who wish to contribute to the ecosystem in governing, operating, and safeguarding the Starknet network. STRK primarily serves three purposes: governance, paying gas fees on Starknet, and participating in Starknet’s consensus mechanism.
The Starknet Foundation is distributing STRK to valuable community members who have demonstrated their commitment to advancing, maintaining, and protecting Starknet through various activities like Devonomics, Catalyst, DeFi Spring, and the focal point of this article, Provisions (i.e., the airdrop).
On February 14, 2024, the Starknet Foundation announced the first phase of the Provisions plan, intending to distribute up to 700 million STRK tokens from a reserve of 900 million STRK allocated for Provisions. The application period lasted four months, from February 20, 2024, to June 20, 2024, resulting in approximately 500 million tokens being claimed, leaving around 400 million STRK for future airdrop rounds.
What are Provisions’ goals?
The primary goal of Provisions is to distribute STRK tokens to a broad range of individuals—real users—who will actively engage with Starknet, contributing to its security and governance, thus advancing Starknet’s decentralization. Starknet serves both as a technology and a social tool, enabling individuals and communities to achieve various social functions such as currency, assets, and governance. Therefore, Starknet’s security and resilience are directly linked to the size and commitment of its caring community.
One significant challenge faced by Provisions is “blockchains cannot represent real humans.” By this, I mean the basic unit on-chain is an account address, not a human/user, with no clear correspondence between the two. One person may control multiple addresses.
Based on existing on-chain information, it’s challenging to determine which accounts represent humans/users who are more likely to contribute to Starknet’s future operations, security, and governance. In other words, our challenge is how to fairly distribute STRK to humans/users who align with Starknet’s mission based on data from on-chain and other sources related to account activity.
Firstly, it’s essential to acknowledge that existing data is insufficient to precisely solve this problem. Everyone involved in designing Provisions recognized this early on—all potential computational methods can only yield a relative result, not precision in achieving all goals. Some humans/users entirely aligned with Starknet’s mission may receive a small amount or even no tokens, while others less aligned may receive a substantial amount.
Given public criticisms faced by Starknet Provisions and subsequently by airdrops like Eigenlayer, ZKsync, and LayerZero, I believe it’s necessary to clarify this. To my knowledge, no existing solution offers a more accurate or fair implementation of these goals. While the distribution scheme may not be perfect, adopting alternative metrics would lead to different inaccuracies.
How did the Starknet Foundation design the airdrop?
The Starknet Foundation included six groups in the airdrop, each group’s distribution based on metrics/data relevant to that group.
Starknet Users: Primarily considering address activity metrics, with third-party witch screening;
STARK Early Adopters: Allocated based on prior use of StarkEx before Starknet;
Ethereum Contributors: Mainly includes individuals contributing to Ethereum in various capacities (staking, development, submitting Ethereum Improvement Proposals, etc.), with specific metrics for each sub-category;
Github Developers: Allocated based on GitHub activity metrics, selecting developers of prominent open-source projects on GitHub.
Early Community Members Program (ECMP): Individuals contributing to the Starknet ecosystem through events and community development can apply early for token allocation. An ecosystem committee reviews applications for distribution.
Developer Partnerships (DP): Infrastructure developers previously in agreement with the Starknet Foundation also receive token allocations. This is based on pre-agreements with developer teams.
In conclusion, Starknet aims to distribute STRK to a diverse array of groups based on their past actions and contributions, believing these groups are well-suited to operate, care for, and protect Starknet’s future.
Has Provisions achieved its goals?
As mentioned earlier, due to the inadequacy of metrics, it was clear from the outset that STRK distribution could not be entirely accurate. This raises several questions: Have we made the best effort based on available data? How do we evaluate the distribution results—are the addresses included in the airdrop genuinely corresponding to real humans/users?
Among the six groups mentioned, the last three can reasonably be matched one-to-one with real humans. We can further speculate these individuals are likely to continue caring for Starknet’s future.
For the third group (Ethereum Contributors), except for the staking subgroup, most subgroups included in the airdrop likely correspond to the “one address per human/user” standard, with their past actions indicating a commitment to decentralization. Hence, we can hope they will continue to care for and help Starknet.
The second group (StarkEx Users), as early adopters of STARK technology, had the smallest application rate and airdrop scale (only 2.4 million STRK claimed, less than 1% of the total allocation), thus negligible.
The most challenging evaluation pertains to Starknet Users, who received over 87% of the airdrop share (over 430 million STRK). The public dissatisfaction following Provisions mainly focused on this group’s allocation.
There has been extensive negative discussion on social media, with many mentioning the threshold issue—Starknet required holding at least 0.005 ETH on specific dates. Additionally, other controversial incidents surfaced, such as heated remarks from a StarkWare executive triggering community outrage, subsequently followed by an apology; criticism also targeted StarkWare shareholders (including investors, founders, and employees), leading to revisions in the unlocking schedule.
How should we interpret this community anger? To what extent does it come from professional farming teams attempting to rationally influence airdrop standards in this and subsequent rounds (not limited to Starknet)? How much does it represent a specific group (farmer or non-farmer)? Would adopting different distribution methods contribute to Starknet’s long-term success? These are research questions I hope to see answered. If you have ideas on addressing this issue, please share them on the Starknet community forum and tag me.
So far, I’ve discussed social media sentiments regarding Starknet User distribution. Now, it’s time to consider a more significant question. Has Starknet’s airdrop been executed well? The answer is I don’t know, due to lacking the metrics needed to answer this question, which is the same problem preventing accurate token distribution initially. On-chain metrics available, such as TPS, TVL, number of addresses, and coin price, do not directly answer, “Are STRK holders a diverse and wide-ranging group likely to stay, continue improving, operating, and protecting Starknet?”
I am eager for an answer to this question as well. If you have thoughts on addressing this issue, please share them on the Starknet community forum and tag me.
How do I personally feel?
This question may sound odd, but I believe many are curious about the answer. The entire team faced tremendous emotional stress during Provisions, especially Abdel and myself, becoming focal points of personal attacks.
To counter the flood of misinformation (or worse) on Twitter, we relied not only on internal support within the Starknet Foundation or the StarkWare team but also on the unwavering support of the remarkable Starknet ecosystem. While this period was challenging, it ultimately proved valuable, highlighting areas needing improvement and testing our team’s resilience.
We learned the importance of steadfast decision-making and the need to embrace constructive feedback, even when harsh. This experience reinforced our belief that handling public pressure in crypto is as crucial as technical decisions. Witnessing support from others in the ecosystem (sometimes even competitors) has been incredibly encouraging, and I will never forget this assistance. Most importantly, we drew strength from the amazing Starknet ecosystem.
How can we do better in the future?
About 400 million STRK tokens remain for future airdrop rounds. How can we improve?
Clearly, identity verification on the blockchain is a challenging issue, and we cannot guarantee its resolution, but it remains a pursuit we’re passionate about.
The motivation of professional airdrop farming teams to influence subsequent rounds remains strong, meaning whatever we do will inevitably provoke public protests on social media. For me, this is an inevitable and unpleasant aspect of the cryptocurrency industry.
I hope the Starknet Foundation and its Provisions team find new solutions to distribute tokens to a diverse group committed to Starknet’s long-term vision and mission, willing to stay and help it grow. I know they desire this and are actively researching and discussing ways to achieve it.
In summary, Provisions aims to place STRK tokens in the “right hands.” Frankly, I’m uncertain if the Starknet Foundation’s design (especially concerning Starknet User distribution) is precise enough, and I look forward to community research answering this question. I will certainly continue pondering this and plan to share my suggestions at a later date.
I’m eager to hear more thoughts on token distribution mechanisms from inside and outside the ecosystem. If you have any, please share them on the Starknet community forum.