Avail, a notable blockchain data-availability project, has disclosed eligibility criteria for an upcoming token airdrop, following the model of Celestia, a competitor with a token market cap exceeding $1 billion. This revelation came after a document leak on the social media platform X by user @Bitcoineo, which was later flagged by Avail’s PR team to CoinDesk.
Airdrop Details and Eligibility
The leaked document outlines that users of various layer-2 rollups—including Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, zkSync, and Starknet—as well as ecosystem developers and Polygon PoS stakers, might be eligible to receive the AVAIL token. This initiative aims to expand the project’s reach and engage the broader blockchain community, which includes significant interest from the Polygon community, evidenced by a post from Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal expressing enthusiasm about the airdrop.
Project Background and Market Dynamics
Originally part of Polygon, Avail was spun out as an independent entity in March 2023, under the leadership of Anurag Arjun, a Polygon co-founder. The project is now emerging as a key player in the modular blockchain segment, which seeks to decentralize functions traditionally held within monolithic structures like Ethereum.
Competition Heats Up in Data Availability
Avail’s airdrop announcement comes at a time when the data availability sector is seeing robust activity. Celestia recently completed a successful TIA token airdrop in November 2023, achieving a market cap of $1.8 billion. Meanwhile, EigenLayer introduced its data availability solution EigenDA on the Ethereum blockchain, adding to the competitive landscape, although there are no confirmed plans for a token airdrop from them as of yet.
Avail’s strategic move to distribute AVAIL tokens to a broad set of stakeholders reflects the growing trend towards more specialized and modular blockchain functionalities, positioning itself as a significant contributor to the evolving blockchain ecosystem.
