In a remarkable turn of events, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, has reached price levels not seen for almost two years. On Monday, investors anticipated approval of spot ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S., driving Ethereum to climb to $2,984, its highest level since April 26, 2022.
Analysts expect ETH to continue its upward trajectory, with some predicting it could reach $3,600 in the short term in the coming weeks. Kenny Hearn, SwissOne Capital’s chief investment officer, stated, “We are very close in this move to levels around $3,150-$3,300. The next level after that would be $3,600, and we think this is quite easily attainable in the next month or so as the alts continue to play catch up”.
Ethereum Rollup Starknet’s Airdrop
In addition to the price surge, Ethereum rollup Starknet initiated the distribution of 728 million tokens to around 1.3 million addresses, marking what is being dubbed as the largest airdrop of the year. The token’s pre-launch perpetual futures were trading at $1.80 on decentralized futures platform Aevo. Although it briefly spiked to $5 on Kucoin minutes after release, it has since settled at $3.50 in a volatile opening.
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But what exactly is Starknet, and why is its token generating so much excitement?
Starknet is a layer-2 network that leverages zero-knowledge cryptography. Its mission? To enable decentralized applications (dApps) operating on top of Ethereum to scale efficiently without compromising on composability and security. By bundling transactions off-chain into a proof submitted to Ethereum, Starknet aims to process transactions faster and reduce fees for computing them.
Starknet is designed to address Ethereum’s scalability challenges. As the Ethereum ecosystem grows, congestion and high gas fees have become pressing issues. Starknet aims to solve these problems by processing transactions and smart contract functions off-chain while still benefiting from the security guarantees of Ethereum’s underlying blockchain.
STRK, Starknet’s native token, has garnered significant attention. With an initial total supply of 10 billion tokens, STRK’s fully diluted value (FDV) stands at an impressive $35 billion. However, the actual market capitalization—calculated based on the current circulating supply multiplied by the current price—is currently at $2.32 billion.
Starknet initiated its native token distribution through an airdrop. Eligible users, including Ethereum solo and liquid stakers, developers, and projects within and outside the Web3 ecosystem, were able to claim their share of STRK tokens. Over 45 million tokens were secured within the first 90 minutes of allocation.
Token Allocation; 50.1% was allocated to the Starknet Foundation for community airdrops, grants, and donations. 24.68% was distributed to early contributors and investors. 32% was Assigned to StarkWare employees, consultants, and developer partners.
The 700 million STRK tokens are allocated across nine categories and will be used for governance decisions and transaction fees. Starknet plans to introduce staking for STRK tokens in the future.
Following the airdrop, STRK began trading on major exchanges such as Binance, KuCoin, Bybit, Bitfinex, and OKX. Its price surged to over $7 on Binance and surpassed $5 on KuCoin. The market capitalization exceeded $2.1 billion.
Ethereum’s ongoing work on layer 2 solutions, such as rollups and sidechains, aims to improve transaction throughput and reduce fees. These developments position Ethereum well for increased adoption and usage.