$EIGEN
The Ethereum staking king Eigen Foundation suddenly drops a bombshell — in 2025, it will unleash 40 million EIGEN tokens (worth about $280 million) to kick off the largest community funding program in history! This move turns 'decentralized governance' into a real money on-chain giveaway game.
1. Distribution of 40 million EIGEN:
◦ Quarterly airdrop-style funding: Funds will be distributed in batches quarterly to prevent whales from cashing out all at once (but the retail investors have seen through this: isn’t this just the project team's version of 'regular investment'?);
◦ Dual-track funding: Divided into 'open innovation' and 'strategic funding' tracks, where the former encourages grassroots developers' creativity (for example, using EigenDA for AI training), and the latter aims to support core infrastructure like AVS and LRT;
◦ Transparency in operations: Quarterly funding reports will be published, audited by the newly established 'Protocol Committee' (which consists of 5 mysterious big shots, 2 from the foundation and 3 community KOLs).
2. 15% of the treasury reserved for continuity:
Back in 2024, the foundation allocated 15% of the total supply of EIGEN for the community (about 250 million tokens), and this 40 million is just the first shot. The remaining ammunition might be used for:
◦ Airdrop fishing: Following the airdrop strategy from last May, staking EIGEN or participating in AVS testnets may yield free tokens;
◦ Developer bounties: For example, building oracles using EigenLayer can allow a single project to claim up to a million tokens;
◦ Community KOL incubation: Translating documents and operating Twitter may earn salaries (beware of becoming the project team's free marketing army!).