StarkWare, the developer of Starknet (STRK), has made changes to its token unlock schedule in response to concerns raised by the network’s users. The original plan would have allowed investors to sell off their tokens, potentially negatively impacting retail users. To address this, StarkWare has implemented a more gradual unlock schedule. Instead of a large token drop in two months, early contributors and investors will now receive smaller periodic drops over a span of three years.
In a post on February 22, StarkWare stated that they reviewed feedback and decided to adjust the unlocking timeline accordingly. The revised schedule will begin with the unlocking of 64 million STRK tokens, equivalent to nearly $125.5 million and 0.64% of the total supply, on April 15. From there, 64 million STRK tokens will be unlocked each month until March 15 of the following year. After that, the monthly unlock will increase to 127 million STRK tokens for the next two years, until March 15, 2027.
The original plan had proposed unlocking over 1.3 billion STRK tokens, which accounted for about 13% of the total supply and was valued at over $2.5 billion, on April 15, just two months after the token’s launch on February 20. Under the new plan, only 580 million tokens held by early contributors and investors will be unlocked by the end of 2024, instead of the previously scheduled 2 billion tokens.
The original unlock schedule had sparked controversy among Starknet users and market commentators, who expressed concerns about the short timeline and its potential impact on retail users. They argued that it could allow investors to take advantage of retail users as a means of exiting their positions.
Following the announcement of the revised unlock schedule, there was a brief spike in the price of STRK, which had dropped nearly 60% from its peak of $4.41 on February 20 to trade below $1.90. According to CoinGecko, STRK is currently up nearly 5% in the last day.
During the February 20 airdrop, 700 million STRK tokens were made available to over 1.3 million wallets. Within the first hour and a half, 45 million STRK tokens were claimed. So far, over 436 million STRK tokens have been claimed by eligible users, accounting for approximately 94% of the total STRK tokens available for distribution, as reported by Voyager data.
In addition, the total value locked in Starknet has surpassed $100 million for the first time, experiencing a significant increase in the last 24 hours to reach $118 million, according to DefiLlama.
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