The excitement around Solana’s airdrop season persists, with Wormhole now unveiling the tokenomics of its W token in anticipation of an upcoming airdrop. Initially launched as a bridging and cross-chain messaging protocol within the Solana ecosystem, Wormhole has significantly broadened its scope to now include over 30 different blockchain networks.
Currently, Wormhole manages an average daily transfer volume of approximately $30 million, primarily involving the Ethereum, Solana and SUI blockchains. The protocol also handles around 100,000 cross-chain messages daily, and recently passed the milestone of 1 billion messages since launch, demonstrating its extensive use across diverse networks.
Source: wormholescan.io
According to the latest data from DefiLlama, the total value locked in Wormhole has been increasing this year and currently exceeds $1 billion. However, this figure is still below the peak TVL of $4.6 billion recorded in May 2022.
The positive market dynamics and the resurgence of optimism within the Solana community have likely influenced Wormhole’s decision to introduce its governance token.
According to the plan, the token will boast a total supply of 10 billion, with 1.8 billion available at launch. The tokens will be distributed on both Ethereum and Solana platforms, with a substantial portion (approximately 1.7 billion) earmarked for the community via an airdrop. However, the specifics regarding eligibility and the airdrop date are yet to be disclosed.
The W token’s role will be to facilitate governance participation among its holders. Wormhole intends to gradually shift control to token holders, thereby decentralizing the protocol’s governance.
Speculation is rife within the Solana community that this airdrop could outstrip the recent Jupiter (JUP) airdrop in scale. With the W token already trading at $1 on some perp exchanges ahead of its official launch, the value of the airdropped tokens could reach an estimated $1.7 billion if the price remains at current levels. This could position the airdrop as one of the largest in history.
However, the path to launching the token has not been without challenges for Wormhole. In February 2022, the protocol was compromised in a $325 million (in wrapped ETH) hack linked to a GitHub error. Code that could have mitigated the vulnerability was uploaded to Wormhole’s GitHub repository on the day of the attack, but the protocol was exploited by the hacker before the fix was applied.
Despite this setback, the critical role of Wormhole as a key bridge in the Solana ecosystem led to significant support from Jump Crypto, a major investor in both Solana and Wormhole. The firm covered the lost ETH, effectively rescuing Wormhole and supporting the broader Solana ecosystem. Notably, a year after the hack, Jump Crypto managed to recover 120,000 ETH of the amount that was stolen during the 2022 exploit.
With everyone now looking forward to the airdrop date, there are hopes for a big reward for using Solana and Wormhole.
