Starknet, a layer-2 scaling solution built on Ethereum, began distributing its native token STRK on February 20th. There was huge demand, with over 420 million tokens claimed by over 490,000 people in the first 24 hours. Although the price was initially volatile, dropping from $5 to $1.77, futures market activity suggests investors remain bullish. As STRK entered wider crypto exchanges, prices exceeded $7 on Binance and $5 on KuCoin.
The airdrop allows over 1.3 million wallets of Ethereum stakes, Starknet developers/users, and non-crypto projects to claim STRK. During the rush of claims, Starknet saw record transaction volumes of 1.06 million per day and 45 transactions per second, surpassing other layer-2s.
As Starknet’s native token, STRK facilitates transactions on Starknet, which scales Ethereum by processing transactions off-chain to reduce fees and increase speed. The demand mirrors the interest seen in other layer-2 token distributions last year.
24-hour trading volume for STRK exceeded $1.6 billion while open interest hit $150 million. Positive futures funding rates signal traders remain bullish on STRK despite early liquidations. Other usage metrics like the processing of Starknet’s smart contract language Cario also hit new highs.
While still volatile, liquidity metrics on exchanges like 2% depth on Binance suggest high liquidity. The total value locked on Starknet is stable at around $56 million after spiking from $40 million on February 1st.
The Starknet Foundation outlined the provision of over 700 million STRK tokens for areas like governance and transactions. They acknowledged community feedback on eligibility criteria and committed to resolving issues. Staking is planned for the future.
Starknet also announced a “Devonomics” pilot allocating 10% of fees to app developers/builders (8%) and infrastructure engineers (2%) through open voting. This gives builders a stronger voice in shaping Starknet. Starknet currently ranks as the 9th largest layer-2 by TVL at $137 million, up over 2,600% in 2023.
