Crypto Wallet Firm Blockchain to Airdrop $125 Million in Stellar

Nov 6, 2018 at 13:59 UTC
 |  Updated 
Nov 6, 2018 at 14:00 UTC

Crypto wallet provider Blockchain plans to stage what it’s calling the “largest crypto giveaway in history” with a $125 million airdrop.

The company will distribute $125 million in Stellar lumens (XLM), nearly half a billion tokens, to all Blockchain wallet holders. The first batch of recipients will see their tokens arrive within the week, according to an announcement Tuesday.

Blockchain is teaming up with Stellar as its first airdrop partner after releasing an airdrop program and guiding framework last month.

Blockchain CEO Peter Smith said the Stellar network was chosen as it’s “built for scalability” and has “an active and growing ecosystem.”

While to outsiders it might seem an effective way to boost the firm’s customer growth and wallet usage, Smith said the airdrop is part of an effort to put “users first” and allow them “to test, try, trade, and transact with new, trusted cryptoassets in a safe and easy way.”

Smith told CoinDesk:

“Looking back at the last five years of crypto, one of my favourite things has been giving users their first $20 of crypto and watching them realize the power of a new financial system in their hand as they saw their first transaction. But you can only do this for so many people in that fashion. The genesis of this project was; how do we help millions of people make their first transaction?”

Blockchain is also working with charity:water, Stanford d.school, code.org, Network for Good and IBM to aid in adopting XLM.

Stellar Development Foundation co-founder Jed McCaleb said in the release that the foundation believes airdrops are key to building a “more inclusive digital economy.”

“Giving away lumens for free is an invitation to communities to design the services they need,” McCaleb continued. “By working with Blockchain to increase the availability and active use of lumens on the network, leveraging their almost [30 million] wallets, we will increase the network’s utility by many orders of magnitude.”

XLM image via Shutterstock

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