Key Takeaways

  • Binance introduces Sahara AI (SAHARA) as its 25th project in the HODLer Airdrops program.

  • Users who staked BNB between June 18–21, 2025, will receive part of a 125M SAHARA airdrop.

  • SAHARA will list on Binance Spot on June 26 with trading pairs including USDT, USDC, FDUSD, BNB, and TRY.

Binance continues to fuel its dominance in the crypto market with the announcement of a high-profile airdrop and token listing: Sahara AI (SAHARA). The AI-native blockchain project becomes the 25th initiative featured on Binance's HODLer Airdrops portal, with its token scheduled to go live on June 26, 2025.

Binance HODLer Airdrops: Rewarding Passive Participation

Airdrop Mechanism and Eligibility

The HODLer Airdrops program rewards BNB holders who subscribe to Binance's Simple Earn (Flexible or Locked) and/or On-Chain Yields products. Unlike traditional launchpads, HODLer Airdrops utilize historical balance snapshots rather than requiring direct participation or manual claims.

For SAHARA, eligible users are those who staked BNB between 00:00 UTC on June 18 and 23:59 UTC on June 21. Binance will airdrop 125,000,000 SAHARA tokens (1.25% of the total supply) to these participants, automatically distributing rewards to users' Spot Accounts at least one hour before trading goes live.

Binance has also committed to allocating an additional 150,000,000 SAHARA tokens to future airdrops under the same program, reinforcing its goal of ongoing community incentives.

Participation Made Simple

Participation does not require any manual actions. Users merely need to stake BNB in Simple Earn or On-Chain Yields products. Binance calculates hourly average balances via multiple random snapshots during the campaign period. Eligible users will receive rewards retroactively without needing to claim manually.

Token Launch Details

Listing Schedule and Trading Pairs

SAHARA will officially list on Binance Spot on June 26, 2025, at 12:00 UTC. Initial trading pairs will include:

  • SAHARA/USDT

  • SAHARA/USDC

  • SAHARA/FDUSD

  • SAHARA/BNB

  • SAHARA/TRY

Deposits for SAHARA will open one hour after the airdrop announcement. The token will carry the Seed Tag, denoting that it is a newer, potentially more volatile project. Binance advises users to conduct proper due diligence (DYOR) before trading.

Network Details

SAHARA will be launched on both BNB Chain and Ethereum using the same smart contract address: 0xFDFfB411C4A70AA7C95D5C981a6Fb4Da867e1111. Listing fees for the token are waived, consistent with Binance's support for early-stage Web3 innovation.

SAHARA Tokenomics

The maximum supply of SAHARA is capped at 10,000,000,000 tokens. At launch, the circulating supply will be 2.04 billion with half the total supply to come. The HODLer Airdrop share is: 1.25% of the total supply, this is a HODL airdrop of significant size compared to other token distributions.

Binance has also committed to additional allocation for future drops and an additional 1.5% of the total supply (150m tokens) will be reserved for future drops.

Beyond the Airdrop: SAHARA Ecosystem Expansion

Trading Features and Integrations

Binance has made SAHARA accessible across its platform suite:

  • Simple Earn: SAHARA Flexible Products available at launch.

  • Buy Crypto: SAHARA can be purchased using Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Revolut.

  • Convert: Users can convert SAHARA to BTC, USDT, and other supported tokens at zero fees.

  • Margin Trading: SAHARA will be enabled on Cross and Isolated Margin with USDT and USDC pairs.

  • Futures: USDⓈ-M SAHARA Perpetual Contracts with up to 75x leverage will launch alongside Spot trading.

This listing as a full-stack strategy is to enhance SAHARA's visibility and usability in various user groups from hodlers to active traders.

Alpha Transition

SAHARA will also be featured on Binance Alpha before the listing goes live. But when the spot market opens, the token will be removed from the Alpha interface and all balances will be moved into Spot Account. This aligns with plans from Binance to let promising projects mature in Alpha before launching them to a wider audience.

Inside Sahara AI: The Project Fueling the Buzz

The SAHARA is a community-based AI platform with decentralization, all AI models can be created, application and all of the contribution and monetization became easy. It enables Users and Businesses to empower themselves with the information and knowledge that's meaningful to them through Personalised “Knowledge Agents" (KA).

Unlike centralized AI offerings dominated by tech giants, Sahara AI emphasizes independence, safety and privacy. Contributions to the platform — whether it data annotations, reviews, or model creation – are provable and incentivized using a number of on-chain features of the platform, including royalties and Sahara Points.

Backed by Leading Investors

SAHARA has already drawn high-caliber support. The project launched IDO (there was private rounds as well) and raised $51.5M with backers (investors and advisors) like Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital, Binance Labs (now with Yzi Labs), SamsungNEXT and dao5.

They will be led by professor Sean (Xiang) Ren, an AI researcher from University of Southern California who has been named one of the top AI innovators by Samsung and MIT.

Airdrop Landscape and Market Sentiment

SAHARA is just one of the latest buzz-worthy AI crypto projects. As more and more investors begin to show interest in blockchain projects that utilize the power of AI, Sahara joins a list of available tokens including Fetch. ai (FET) and Bittensor (TAO) getting some traction.

However, rather than being focused on protocol infrastructure or training incentives, SAHARA is structured around individual data ownership and monetization, and may find a foothold in the data sovereignty sector.