Hyperliquid distributed over 300 million HYPE tokens to its community through an airdrop event on November 29. Following this massive distribution, the value of the HYPE token increased by 60%.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Hyperliquid held one of the largest airdrops in history during its genesis event on Nov. 29, distributing 310 million HYPE tokens to its community. The event initially valued the HYPE token at $3.90, creating a total distribution value of $1.2 billion. Following the launch, the token’s value increased by 63% in about 12 hours, reaching $6.16 at the time of writing. Its current market value is approaching $2 billion.
Hyperliquid is a layer-1 blockchain with a capacity of 200,000 transactions per second and a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. The HYPE token plays a central role in the ecosystem, being used both as a staked asset for consensus and as a gas token for Hyperliquid’s Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible layer, HyperEVM.
According to the protocol, 31% of the total supply was distributed during the genesis event. Of the remaining supply, 38.8% was allocated for future offerings and community rewards, while 6% was allocated to the Hyper Foundation treasury and 0.3% for grants. Core contributors will receive 23.8% of the total supply with a 1-year lock-up period, and vesting plans will be completed in 2028. Hyperliquid stated that it does not make any allocations to private investors, centralized exchanges, or market makers.
Hyperliquid’s airdrop is considered one of the largest in DeFi history. In 2020, Uniswap distributed 400 UNI tokens to over 250,000 wallets, with each token having a starting value of around $3.40. This distribution gave each recipient a value of around $1,300. Many users quickly sold their tokens and made a profit, but the value of UNI rose to over $42 in a few months during the DeFi boom in the summer of 2021, creating a huge profit for investors.
The Arbitrum protocol also conducted a major airdrop in 2023. In this distribution, Arbitrum’s native token ARB was distributed to over 625,000 eligible wallets at a value of approximately $1.30, for a total distribution of $812,500.
An airdrop is the sharing of new or existing tokens to users for free by blockchain-based protocols, usually to reward early adopters or promote new cryptocurrencies.
Over the past few years, a total of $26.6 billion worth of crypto tokens have been distributed to users. This assessment is based on the all-time high price, not the token price at the time of distribution.
