Solana DeFi Protocol Kamino’s Announcement of Airdrop Snapshot Sparks Controversy – Unchained

The announcement, which boosted the Kamino’s total locked value by over $100 million in the past day, has had mixed reactions, with many criticizing key elements of the plan.

Kamino Finance announced Thursday morning that it will take a snapshot on March 31 of the addresses using the decentralized finance protocol native to Solana in preparation for its first token airdrop set to occur in April. 

“The initial community distribution will be distributed in a linear fashion, based on Season 1 of Kamino Points. For example, if a user owns 1% of the total Season 1 Points, they are eligible to receive 1% of the total initial community distribution,” wrote the Kamino team in a thread on X. 

The announcement has generated controversy among community members, with many criticizing Kamino’s decision to linearly distribute its token to people, highlighting the lack of special treatment for early adopters. 

“So there is nothing that is given to people who were here since the start of the early days, basically I can make a brand new wallet, deposit 100K and get top 100 and be better than all the early users?”  asked one user who goes by the screen name, “xoxoxoxoox,” in the general chat of Kamino’s Discord. A self-proclaimed Solana manlet, who goes by “Jymba,” responded by saying, “Yup.”

“DeusNero,” who has the role of admin, contributor, and moderator in Kamino’s Discord, defended the Solana-based DeFi protocol’s decision by saying, “Linear removes the risk of 1000s of wallet sybil farming and then dumping the [shit] out on everyone.” Sybil farming refers to the practice of a single individual using several wallets and addresses to game and manipulate engagement on a protocol, ultimately to receive a larger allocation of airdrop tokens.

Moreover, some are also condemning Kamino’s decision to announce a future snapshot date. One user, “@mxddd_69,”  in Kamino’s Telegram wrote, “You shouldn’t mention the snapshot. By doing so, you’ll just provide tokens to those who just farm and dump your coins, while at the same time diluting the contributions of the original depositors.” In response, a Kamino team member said, “We are optimizing for liquidity and usability, not for one-time stimmy cheques.” 

Some online supported the airdrop plan, such as “Deeze”, writing on X, that “We love a timeline for our points.” Another, who goes by “0xjaypeg,” said “Kamino’s airdrop strategy makes total sense from a business PoV,” noting that it focuses on TVL inflows and demarcates rewarding whales vs. loyal users by separating seasons. 

Kamino did not immediately respond to Unchained’s request for comment.

Rise in Locked Value

The locked value in Kamino’s smart contracts has increased substantially following the announcement of the snapshot. Kamino’s total value locked stands at $633.8 million at presstime, a $106.7 million increase since yesterday, making it the fourth-largest protocol on Solana, per blockchain analytics firm DefiLlama.

Kamino’s announcement of its token airdrop continues a long list of protocols, such as Jupiter, Jito, and Starknet, distributing their native tokens to addresses ideally to reward early adopters and establish decentralized governance for the platform. 

According to the team’s X thread, KMNO will have a total supply of 10 billion tokens and grant holders governance rights over various parts of the Kamino, including control over incentive programs for users and protocol revenue allocation. 

The total number of points earned by Kamino users currently stands at 112.89 billion, with the top 20 addresses collectively owning about 23.9 billion points, more than 20% of the total, data from Kamino shows.