EigenLayer opens airdrop claims till Sept. 7

Users can now claim EigenLayer’s native token, but the team previously said EIGEN will remain non-transferable.

The 120-day period to claim EIGEN opened on May 10 and will run until September for EigenLayer’s phase one “stakedrop.”

Participants can secure 6.05% of the token’s 1.67 billion supply during the distribution, while a phase two allocation will increase available tokens by 0.7%.

EigenLayer plans to share 113 billion EIGEN tokens to eligible users who deposited Ether (ETH) on the staking platform for months. According to the Eigen Foundation, the allocation will be disbursed over multiple seasons, and users will receive 15% of EIGEN’s total supply. 

However, the roadmap stirred discontent within the crypto community, as claimants cannot send EIGEN across wallets, and certain regions were geo-blocked from the airdrop. 

Users in the U.S., Canada, and areas in Africa and Asia cannot access the claims website. Typically, a VPN would circumvent this ban, but VPN users were also blocked, drawing further scrutiny to the EigenLayer protocol. 

The contentious EigenLayer airdrop is one of several token distributions rocking the crypto community in the second quarter of 2024. LayerZero also received backlash for its anti-Sybil systems and “report-to-earn” initiative. 

Elsewhere, experts are skeptical about the EIGEN token’s promise and how the restaking giant has contributed to Ethereum’s ecosystem. Galaxy researcher Christine Kim said on X that the protocol’s whitepaper left a lot to be desired and also questioned problems identified by the team.