Wormhole to airdrop 1.7b tokens to community members

The cross-chain protocol Wormhole has revealed plans to distribute billions of W tokens among community members in a bid to decentralize its governance.

As per a blog post, the Wormhole team allocated 1.7 billion (17% of the total supply) of its native token called W for community airdrop and launch, while the initial circulating supply will be set at 1.8 billion W tokens. The remaining 82% of W tokens will be initially locked, with plans for gradual unlocking over four years.

The protocol will roll out its native token, W, on both Ethereum‘s ERC-20 standard and Solana‘s SPL. Under the token distribution plan, the largest allocation, accounting for 31%, is allocated for ecosystem and incubation, followed by foundation treasury at 23.3%, and core contributors at 12%.

Wormhole’s token distribution plan | Source: Wormhole

While the snapshot for the community airdrop has already been taken, specific details regarding the distribution criteria remain unclear.

Eventually, Wormhole plans to “progressively decentralize the protocol’s governance to W holders,” the developers said in the blog post, adding that W holders could guide community programs and treasury-related activities.

“The goal of this governance launch is to empower and enable the Wormhole community to address these critical areas with the necessary resources and support.”

Wormhole

Founded in 2021, Wormhole is a cross-chain protocol designed to facilitate interoperability and communication between different blockchain networks.

In November 2023, the protocol raised $225 million at a $2.5 billion valuation from investors Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, and Jump Trading, which initially incubated the protocol under its digital asset division Jump Crypto. Rather than equity, Wormhole issued token warrants to investors. These warrants guarantee that investors will receive an allocated supply of a crypto token launched by the protocol.

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