Starknet’s STRK Jumps After Developer StarkWare Agrees to Delay Token Unlocks

Starknet’s

STRK
token
jumped
as
much
as
10%
Thursday
after
developer
firm
StarkWare
agreed
to
drastically
reduce
the
number
of
tokens
allocated
to
the
team
that
are
scheduled
to
unlock
in
April,
following
heavy
criticism
from
the
community.

The

statement
came
after
the
Ethereum
layer-2
project
this
week

airdropped
more
than
700
million
tokens
to
early
users,
contributors
and
other
targeted
groups,
with
the
additional
disclosures
that
developers
and
investors
might
be
able
to
start
sell
much
of
their
own
allocations
as
early
as
next
month.
The
market
capitalization
of
the
tokens,
based
on
the
circulating
supply,
currently
stands

around
$1.44
billion.

“After
listening
to
feedback
from
ecosystem
friends
and
collaborators,
we
are
changing
the
lockup
schedule
for
StarkWare’s
early
contributors
and
investors
to
make
it
more
gradual,”
according
to
an
emailed
statement.
StarkWare
is
the
primary
developer
behind
Starknet,
a
layer-2
blockchain
atop
Ethereum.

Under
the
new
schedule,
0.64%
of
the
10
billion
tokens
initially
minted
will
unlock
on
April
15,
instead
of
the
planned
13.4%
(1.34
billion
tokens),
according
to
the
statement.

“The
gradual
unlock
will
continue
at
a
pace
of
0.64%
(64
million
tokens)
monthly
until
March
15,
2025,
after
which
it
will
change
to
1.27%
(127
million
tokens)
monthly
for
the
next
24
months
until
March
15,
2027,”
StarkWare
said.

“Under
the
new
unlock
plan,
580
million
tokens
held
by
early
contributors
and
investors
will
be
unlocked
by
the
end
of
2024,
as
opposed
to
2
billion
of
those
tokens
under
the
previous
schedule,”
according
to
StarkWare.
“1.4
billion
additional
tokens
will
be
gradually
unlocked
by
the
end
of
2025,
another
1.5
billion
will
be
unlocked
by
the
end
of
2026
and
380
million
will
be
unlocked
by
March
15,
2027.”

Starknet,
developed
by
developer
firm
StarkWare,
is
a

layer-2
network
that
makes
use
of
zero-knowledge
cryptography,
allowing
decentralized
applications
operating
on
top
of
it
to
scale
the
Ethereum
blockchain.
It
does
this
by
bundling
transactions
off-chain

into
a
proof
that
is
submitted
to
Ethereum,
which
in
turn
is
supposed
to
process
the
transaction
faster
and
lower
fees
for
computing
them.

Starknet’s
token
unlocking
schedule
for
the
development
team
and
early
investors
came
under
criticism
from
market
observers.
STRK
started
trading
at
$5
earlier
this
week,
then

quickly
fell.
At
press
time,
the
token
was
changing
hands
at
$2.