This is a living article, continuously updated to reflect new information. Last updated on Tuesday, November 1st
Airdrop Claim Update
All outstanding airdrops will be claimable on November 22nd. Some airdrops will be liquid STRD, others will be vesting STRD. Read on for up-to-date information about Stride’s various airdrops.
Why Airdrop?
To begin, why does Stride conduct such large airdrops? Stride fully believes in the decentralization ethos of Cosmos, and as such Stride’s token supply must be as distributed as possible. If Stride were completely decentralized from a technological perspective but its governance token were concentrated in a small set of hands, then it wouldn’t really be decentralized. A network can only be as decentralized as its least decentralized part.
Considering Stride’s airdrops specifically, 6.3% of the total supply of STRD will be airdropped. Considering Stride’s tokenomics in general, 50% of the total supply will be freely distributed to the communities Stride serves, through airdrops, liquidity incentives, staking rewards, and so on.
Stride’s airdrops are an important way of distributing the STRD supply and making sure it gets into the right hands, which contributes to the goal of making Stride as decentralized as possible.
Airdrop Categories
There are three categories of STRD airdrops: host-chain airdrops, the Switching Cost Rebate Program, and testnet rewards. If an address is eligible, these airdrops can all be claimed through the Stride airdrop user interface.
Airdrop Category 1: Host-chain Airdrops
ATOM stakers: 2,200,000 STRD
Snapshot: Sunday, August 14th at 13:00 UTC
Min threshold: 10 ATOM, max threshold: 4,200 ATOM
STARS stakers: 20,000 STRD
Snapshot: Monday, September 19th at 09:30:35 UTC
Min threshold: 2,800 STARS, max threshold: 1.2MM STARS
JUNO stakers: 200,000 STRD
Snapshot: Sunday, August 14th at 13:00 UTC
Min threshold 16 JUNO, max threshold 8,300 JUNO
OSMO stakers: 1,000,000 STRD
Snapshot: Sunday, August 14th at 13:00 UTC
Min threshold 85 OSMO, max threshold 43,000 OSMO
INJ stakers: 100,000 STRD
Snapshot: Monday, October 24th at 17:08 UTC (block 17469200)
Min threshold: 25 INJ, max threshold: 26,500 INJ
Amount remaining for airdrops to chains on-boarded by Stride in the future: 1,555,000 STRD
Host-chain Airdrop Calculation
The amount of STRD for a host-chain airdrop is divided evenly between all tokens across all eligible addresses. Only staked tokens are eligible. Addresses with less than roughly $100 of a given token are excluded, as the airdrop would be negligible. A whale cap of roughly $50,000 of a given token is used. For example, if a user has more than $50,000 worth of a given token, only the first $50,000 of that token is eligible for the airdrop.
Exchange Validators Excluded
As with other Cosmos airdrops, tokens delegated to exchange validators are excluded from host-chain airdrops. This was done in order to put STRD in the hands of active, engaged members of the communities Stride serves. Users who stake with exchange validators likely have a low degree of participation in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Tasks and Vesting
Host-chain airdrop recipients have to perform several tasks on Stride to claim the full airdrop amount. Most of the airdrop amount vests for a period of time after being claimed. Here’s the process:
Whatever a user’s total airdrop amount may be, 20% is granted freely to the user. All he has to do is click a button. This 20% is liquid and does not vest.
The task to claim the next 20% of the total airdrop amount is to stake the first 20% that the user freely claimed. This second 20% of the total amount then begins to vest to the user. Vesting is linear over a period of 6 months.
At this point, there is still 60% of the total airdrop amount left to claim. The task to claim this final portion is: liquid stake any amount of ATOM with Stride. Upon completion of this task, the final 60% of the total airdrop amount begins to vest. Vesting is linear over a period of 6 months.
Claw-back and Redistribution
As with other Cosmos airdrops, unclaimed STRD will be clawed back. The reason projects do this is that in distributing their token they want to select for active and engaged recipients. These are governance tokens, after all. If a user takes months to claim his free tokens, he likely won’t actively participate in governance. So after a certain amount of time, projects like to claw back their unclaimed tokens. Clawed back tokens are usually placed in the project’s community pool. For example, about half of the Osmosis genesis airdrop went unclaimed, and was clawed back to the community pool.
But Stride is different in this regard. Stride strongly desires that its token supply be widely distributed. If users won’t claim their STRD airdrop, it will be clawed back and given to users who are interested in claiming it! Here’s how it works:
Once a host-chain airdrop is released, airdrop recipients will have a three-month claim window to perform the required tasks and claim their total airdrop amount. Stride will repeatedly and loudly communicate exact dates for the claim windows, in order to give recipients every opportunity to claim their STRD. After the claim window ends, all unclaimed STRD will be clawed back. This pool of STRD will then be immediately redistributed to the same set of recipients as the original airdrop, and will be claimable in the same manner as the original airdrop.
Here’s an example. Bob, Alice, and Joe are the set of users eligible for a Stride host-chain airdrop. Bob receives 10 STRD, Alice receives 20 STRD, and Joe receives 70 STRD, as they had different amounts of token staked. Bob and Alice both claim all their STRD, but Joe claims none of his. At the end of the three-month claim window, Joe’s unclaimed 70 STRD is clawed back and immediately redistributed. In the second airdrop, Bob receives 7 STRD, Alice receives 14 STRD, and Joe receives 49 STRD. If Joe fails to claim his STRD a second time, then there will be a third airdrop, and so on.
This mechanism essentially gives users a chance to claim other users’ unclaimed STRD airdrop, while at the same time giving users who missed the claim window a second chance to claim their STRD, albeit a smaller amount. This will help to create a STRD token holder set that is active, engaged, and cares about Stride.
Airdrop Category 2: Switching Cost Rebate Program
***Important update: the Rebate Program is being discontinued, effective November 23rd. Stride will honor the Rebate Program for all past deposits, and Stride will continue to honor the program through November 22nd. But beginning on November 22nd, new deposits will not receive a rebate.***
There is a significant switching cost to joining Stride. Users have to unstake their tokens to deposit with Stride, meaning they will miss out on staking rewards during the unstaking period. To make it easy for users to liquid stake with Stride, they are given STRD through the Switching Cost Rebate Program to help compensate for missed staking rewards. A total of 725,000 STRD has been earmarked for the Rebate Program.
The Rebate Program works on a monthly basis, according to calendar months. Each month, Stride records the addresses that deposit tokens with Stride and the amount they deposit. To give users the benefit of the doubt, it’s assumed that all tokens deposited with Stride had to be unstaked, so all deposits are eligible for rebates. Specifically, Stride calculates the dollar amount of missed staking rewards from unstaking tokens and helps compensate users with STRD.
In September, 50,000 STRD was available for the rebate program. In the months of October and November, 100,000 STRD was available each month.
Rebates for the months of September and October will be claimable November 22nd. Since this is a rebate, it will be liquid and does not vest. Rebates for deposits in November will be claimable when the necessary data has been processed.
Airdrop Category 3: Testnet Rewards
Stride held an incentivized testnet and bug bounty in the summer of 2022, for which there were 500,000 STRD worth of incentives.
In order to properly distribute this amount, eligible users from the Stride Discord community will be asked to link their Discord usernames to their Stride blockchain addresses. Once that has been done, these addresses will be able to claim their STRD. Testnet incentives and bug bounty rewards vest linearly over three months.
Conclusion
The goal of these airdrops is to distribute STRD to the communities Stride serves and create an active and engaged set of STRD token-holders. Ultimately, this helps decentralize Stride.
