Millions dumped by Nethermind and airdrop hunters cause drop in Starknet’s STRK token

The price of the Ethereum layer-2 network Starknet’s token, STRK, has experienced a significant drop of almost 60% since its airdrop on February 20th. CoinGecko data shows that the token is currently trading below $1.90, down from its peak of $4.41. Following its listing on Binance, STRK briefly reached $7.70 but has since plummeted by 75.4% to below $1.90. Blockchain analysts Lookonchain noted that the price of STRK has been steadily declining since its launch. They also discovered that Nethermind, an Ethereum infrastructure firm, sold 3.41 million STRK tokens worth over $6.7 million and still holds $12 million worth of the token, suggesting that further selling may occur. Lookonchain also found instances of airdrop hunters consolidating wallets and transferring large amounts of STRK tokens to a single address. One instance involved 1.2 million STRK worth $2.4 million. On February 21st, Lookonchain identified another case where 1.4 million airdropped STRK tokens worth about $3 million were sent to a single address. Prior to the airdrop, Banteg, a developer at Yearn.finance, had accused airdrop hunters of controlling over 700,000 wallets eligible for the airdropped STRK tokens. Additionally, some Starknet users claimed they were ineligible for the airdrop despite meeting the criteria, which required users to hold at least 0.005 ETH at the time of a snapshot on November 15th, 2023. Others raised concerns about the unlock schedule for rewarding investors and contributors with 1.3 billion STRK tokens, which accounts for 13% of the total supply, two months after the launch. Despite the decline in STRK’s price, the total value locked in Starknet stands at $73.5 million, marking a 30% increase in just 24 hours, according to DefiLlama.