Solana airdrops signal market U-turn as token surges more than 70%

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Hey everyone, Tim here.

Solana’s DeFi renaissance just gained another boost after two projects — Pyth Network and Jupiter — announced retrospective airdrops.

These two airdrop announcements may signal that protocols are confident the worst of the crypto winter is behind them.

Anyone who interacted with a DeFi protocol which uses Pyth could be eligible for a split of the 600 million PYTH tokens allocated for the drop.

Pyth is a decentralised oracle network, similar to Chainlink. It provides offchain data, like asset price feeds, to DeFi protocols.

While protocols across many different blockchains use Pyth, it has a close association with many Solana-based protocols, such as Mango Markets, Solend, and marginfi.

Likewise, decentralised exchange Jupiter plans to airdrop tokens to 955,000 unique wallets that remained active on Solana throughout its brutal drawdown, which saw the blockchain’s total value locked plummet 97%.

Airdrops, at their core, are a marketing tactic to drum up interest in a protocol. Most protocols planning airdrops wait until crypto users are paying attention before airdropping tokens to maximise exposure.

The recent uptick in Solana DeFi deposits, coupled with the SOL’s 71% rally over the past month have made the blockchain impossible to ignore.

Aragon acquiesces

Elsewhere, DL News’ DAO expert Osato Avan-Nomayo checked in on the long-running drama at Aragon.

The latest is that the Aragon Association, the Swiss non-profit behind Aragon DAO, will let ANT holders redeem their tokens for a portion of the project’s treasury, minus $11 million set aside to continue the project.

Many token holders are unhappy with the arrangement, as it will let the Aragon Association take unclaimed funds for itself, which some estimate could total more than $50 million.

However, the situation differs from previous DAO rage quits in that Aragon will technically give back more funds to token holders than it originally took.

In Aragon’s six years of operation, the project grew its treasury from the initial $25 million raised through its 2017 initial coin offering to $166 million today.

Still, for many who participated in the ICO or bought tokens on the secondary market, the frustration of dealing with the Aragon Association in recent months overshadows any potential gains.

A Multichain mystery

Finally, a sudden restart then stop of Multichain has revived questions about what is going on with the once-dominant crypto bridge.

On November 1, Multichain reactivated its Fantom bridge for two hours, allowing a user to arbitrage the prices of wrapped Bitcoin, Ether, and USDT. The user made off with almost $1 million in profit before the bridge swiftly closed again.

The timing of the activity raises questions, and may suggest that the user who profited from the arbitrage was working in tandem with whoever restarted the bridge.

Some suspect Multichain CEO Zhaojun He. Others believe He was arrested in May, and that the Chinese authorities have confiscated the keys which control the Multichain bridge and are behind the transactions.

Data of the week

Activity on Solana decentralised exchanges spiked over the past week, with daily trading volume hitting its highest level since 2022.

At the same time, the blockchain’s total value locked continues to grind upward.

Those who read last week’s newsletter will know stablecoin inflows are a key metric analysts look to when measuring growth. Like we saw with the wider DeFi ecosystem, Solana hasn’t registered any significant stablecoin inflows yet.

This week in DeFi governance

VOTE: Arbitrum DAO activates ARB Staking

VOTE: Aave aims to boost GHO peg stability by increasing borrow rate to 4.72%

VOTE: Uniswap Foundation to delegate 2.5 million UNI to underrepresented delegates

Post of the week

November 2 marked the one year anniversary of the leaked Alameda Research balance sheet which led to FTX declaring bankruptcy nine days later.

It’s fitting that the day after the anniversary, Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.

What we’re watching

Arbitrum DAO passes a proposal to introduce ARB token staking. The term “staking” should be used lightly — as Mikko points out, the scheme amounts to little more than a bribe to stop ARB holders from selling their tokens.

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Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at tim@dlnews.com.