It’s Raining Coins | Bankless

Jito yeets JTO

Jito, a Solana-native liquid staking protocol, just grabbed headlines and filled wallets with the launch of its JTO token. The airdrop created big buzz in the Solana ecosystem, with some recipients gaining thousands, even six-figure values, from the new token.

On the heels of the launch, Jito likened to a blend of Ethereum’s Lido and Flashbots, has surged to a fully diluted valuation of $3.35 billion, quickly overtaking Lido’s $2.5 billion valuation.

Can Jito continue this dominance, or will it come back to earth after the excitement dies down some? We’ll see, but whatever happens, the JTO release does continue the recent trend of high-profile token launches, following notable gains from Pyth’s and Celestia’s airdrops.

Starknet releases token update

The Starknet Foundation, steward of the Starknet L2, just published an update on its plans to distribute 1.8 billion STRK tokens as part of its user rewards and network rebates program.

This distribution, which will be managed by various committees, is slated to include 900 million tokens allocated by the Provisions Committee for past and future user contributions. Additionally, a User Rebates Committee will distribute 900 million tokens to cover transaction fees on the network, and a DeFi Committee will allocate 50 million tokens to stimulate DeFi protocol activity within Starknet.

The initiative, part of a wider 10 billion Stark token issuance roadmap, is aimed at enhancing the network’s liquidity and user engagement​ that much further.

LayerZero eyes token launch

LayerZero, the blockchain interoperability protocol, officially announced plans to launch a native token in early 2024.

The move comes after months of speculation within crypto and confirms the protocol’s initial design for token integration. The launch is expected to feature an airdrop, and the tokens could potentially carry governance rights for future development decisions.

“Its distribution is something we’re committed to getting right,” LayerZero Labs said on X.

Inscriptions clog Telegram’s blockchain

The Inscriptions craze just reached TON. This week, Telegram’s blockchain experienced a significant slowdown, dropping to just one transaction per second, following the introduction of a Bitcoin Ordinals-inspired inscriptions protocol.

This sudden surge in activity led to over 2.5 million pending transactions, causing severe congestion and leading popular TON wallets to temporarily pause services. The slowdown was attributed to validator nodes operating on weak hardware, unable to handle the 50-100 times increase in network load within half an hour.

Despite efforts to address the issue, including introducing harsher penalties for lagging validators, the incident highlights the challenges of managing high-volume data transactions on blockchains.

Worldcoin plots decentralization

Worldcoin, co-created by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is advancing its decentralization agenda with the launch of a new grants program.

The Worldcoin Foundation, overseeing the project’s direction, aims to foster “distributed robustness” akin to TCP/IP or WiFi. This move includes decentralizing orb production, establishing distributed governance, and enhancing privacy measures. The foundation’s initial grant program has a $5 million pool for developers, with grants in WLD tokens awarded for various initiatives.