Wormhole Airdrop: W Tokenomics, Unlock Schedule and Eligibility

Wormhole, a cross-chain protocol, has announced an airdrop of its W token. The team didn’t provide an exact date, but did say in a blog post that a snapshot of eligible wallets has already been taken.

The cross-chain protocol allows users to bridge send messages and assets between different blockchains. It initially linked Ethereum to Solana, but has since expanded to link together almost 30 different networks. Since it launched in late 2020, the company has gone on to close a $225 million funding round in November 2022 that gave it a $2.5 billion valuation.

Unsurprisingly, there are already perpetual futures contracts for W—as is the case for most highly-anticipated token airdrops. But one Twitter user pointed out there are signs that the W airdrop could be even bigger than Jupiter’s JUP airdrop on Solana last week.

The Wormhole team plans to distribute 10 billion W tokens over four years. The initial circulating supply is set at 1.8 billion. The remaining 82% of the supply will unlock on a set schedule.

“The token generation event (TGE), broad distribution, and usage of W is a crucial step in advancing Wormhole towards a decentralized and permissionless future,” the team wrote in a blog post Wednesday night.

Wormhole will distribute 5.1% of its supply to guardian nodes, 17% to its community, 12% to core contributors, 11.6% to strategic network partners and set aside 31% for maintaining its ecosystem and the remaining 23.3% for its foundation treasury.

The Wormhole Network currently has a set of 18 guardians among whom voting power has been evenly split. All of the W tokens being allocated to the guardians, core contributors, and strategic network participants will be locked and unlock on a set schedule.

As for the community, 1.7 billion W tokens will be unlocked initially and the rest will unlock four months later.

“Wormhole wouldn’t be possible without a thriving community of supporters. 11% of this allocation will be unlocked at TGE and will be distributed during the initial phases of the TGE, including the TGE-related airdrop,” the team wrote in its blog post. “The snapshot for this airdrop has been taken before the publishing of this blog.”

The airdrop is meant to decentralize governance for the project by granting W holders a role in governance that will allow them to guide community programs and treasury-related activities.

But the road has been without its bumps. In February 2022, a hacker stole $320 million worth of Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) from Wormhole. Within a day, high-frequency crypto trading firm Jump Crypto got involved to get Wormhole back up and running again by replenishing the stolen WETH.