Second (Third, Fourth, …) User Airdrop - Making Starknet Happen

🏛 Governance Governance Proposals
21

Considerations on an experiment whose outcome we cannot yet know.

Perhaps it’s all a big misunderstanding that hasn’t been particularly well communicated.

If we’re honest, no one has figured out how to effectively build a decentralized network with tokens (including airdrops).

We have enthusiastically driven projects like Optimism with a great community, and then somewhat at the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, there’s Starknet. It’s not just that the numbers look bad, but particularly the perception from the outside. And if we’re truly honest with ourselves, all the projects currently on Starknet are simply weak and would never have been sustainable on another chain. The only relevant one here is Moody (I believe a former central figure in the most relevant app in the entire crypto space, well, let’s hope he remains.) The push towards on-chain gaming is generally good in principle, but let’s also be honest here, in the crypto space, there isn’t a single game that a regular person would play out of intrinsic enjoyment.

One of the major criticisms is that it’s an insider/VC project.

I think Eli’s vision is genuinely good-hearted, and perhaps it will actually succeed over many years.

In short, I understand it as wanting to make an integrity web available to the world, preferably cheaply or almost for free in a decentralized manner.

So, what’s the path to achieving that?

Presumably, if one considers Starknet like a normal project, it won’t get very far.

But presumably, one would have to look at Starkware as a whole.

I think the technology of Starks is indisputably very good.

In the future, large companies wanting to use blockchain tech but not wanting to be decentralized could simply buy Stark ex Services. An example would be a blockbuster game like GTA; the company could, if necessary, edit the consensus, but then use to Stark ex and settle later in ETH. Users will demand this in the future as more and more payments are made in-game.

This means that those who want to profit financially from Starks should hope that Starkware shares will be available at some point.

But what about Starknet? One can view it as a gift to the world from Eli and the others, if it should truly become properly decentralized.

And how does one now bring this gift into the world?

I think the biggest fear was that the wrong people would pocket the benefits and that no one should speculate heavily with the project.

The underlying assumption is that the founders are tech and science-driven and rather reject this whole slightly crazy greed and money focus in the blockchain space.

Hence the thesis: special criteria that must have been internally known, so that the tokens are preferably distributed more to their own people and can thus later enter the free market through sales to decentralize. As a result, the aggressive vesting schedule also makes sense. Selling off as best as possible and thus bringing the tokens into the world. It’s better to make profits oneself than anonymous farmers on the net.

The goal could be that the token price continues to decrease towards zero. In the long-term vision, it has also been explicitly stated that there will be no cap on the number of tokens later.

Is that bad? Not necessarily. It depends on the standpoint. If one regards it like a normal crypto project, it seems bizarre and against community and user building. But if one sees it as described above, it actually can make sense.

And is a well-equipped and professional organization like Starkware really so incompetent in terms of outward presentation and dealing with users? Probably not, rather internally one probably knows where things will go in the future.

One could also ask why, for example, projects have announced challenges for users with NFT rewards, but then apart from fees for the platform, nothing else comes out of it. Here, a reframing could help: Starknet has mastered Farm the Farmer. Which is somewhat amusing and actually quite clever, just at the expense of community development, but let’s leave that aside for now.

So what does this mean? The company and its employees have their focus on Stark ex in the future.

Starknet should be given to the world but not the value of the token. This leads to a currently technically very good Ghost Chain. Especially when the subsidies stop.

Presumably, this is understood by all involved, but the experiment is still being carried out, and maybe it will succeed. Perhaps, in a few years, users will truly come and prefer this chain. What could speak against it is the technological spill-over effect, as a result of which everyone will soon have the good technology of Starknet and the blockchain space will homogenize over time. Or as Moody meant with forking.

Nonetheless, we might be experiencing a completely new approach to dealing with users and community. Only time will tell where it has led. So stay tuned :slight_smile:

22

Starknet Foundation’s own statements cannot be trusted, Not only users, many influencers and developers are also disappointed.

ECMP results are also not transparent.

From Announcing ECMP thread
"We are aware that we are bound to miss some pivotal individuals at this process, and will save some of the program tokens for people that would appeal around their exclusion. Public instructions around the appealing process will be sent in due time. "

And it turns out that until now there has been no response to this statement.

Users, developer, influencer and all components of the ecosystem have already been disappointed

23

Let me answer your questions one by one:

  • Do I disagree with your approach? No - assuming you mean your proposal. I’m studying it and encouraging all involved in Provisions to do so. It’s too early to say whether it should be implemented verbatim – after all, we need to listen to all ideas that come forward.

  • What is your strategy to bring more activity to the chain?

    1. We need better UX for end users, leaning into the capabilities brought forward by account abstractions.
    2. We need more applications that users see value in, and which utilize the scale and performance of Starknet; Gaming seems like an interesting vertical, and payments and other non-speculative activities align well with the safety and integrity of Starknet. For (2) to happen we also need to improve DX (developer experience). This part will take time to unfold.
    3. We need to better articulate our vision narrative and share it with users.
    4. We need to help the existing applications that are good and we need to help them and empower them to get more users onboard, probably by delegating power to them.

  • What went wrong? The main things were:

    1. Snapshots going public
    2. Portion of users alienated by criteria
    3. Controversy over token unlock
    4. Narrative unclear and “deflation of past accomplishments.”

  • Here’s how to fix (1 and 3 already done, 2 and 4 need to be done)

    1. Ensure snapshots don’t go public before the scheduled time

    2. Listen to extensive input from community members like you

    3. Unlock was amended, which both addressed concerns and communicated that community reactions matter

    4. We must communicate the values behind Starknet and how they can shape its future – and why holding such values means it takes time to build. Here are some thoughts on what we should be communicating:

      We invented ZK-STARKs, we deployed them in production first, thus convincing the whole blockchain developer world that this is the right way to scale blockchains. Through blockchains we will convince the world that this is the right way for a free society to deal with the issue of Integrity of large institutions like banks, corporations, and governments. This is not marketing bullshit. It’s my personal deep conviction, as the one who started down this journey (c.f. the abstract and intro of the zk-STARK whitepaper).

  • What went well? The rationale behind the Provisions event, including the new classes like Github developers of open source code, Ethereum stakers and users of earlier forms of the technology (StarkEx users) were both novel and important. The claiming process included the largest number of addresses to date (1.3 M), nearly double that of the prior record, and nevertheless throughout the claiming peak the system didn’t halt. You’re right that there was considerable congestion which caused problems for some applications (like Ekubo), which is in the “what went wrong” but earlier events in other projects resulted in halting of the system, which wasn’t the case here. So overall the execution is something that went well.

  • What is important to fix? (a) narrative, (b) the alienation of Starknet users through the criteria used initially.

  • Do you have any learnings from internal retros you could share? Good suggestion, I’ve asked the team if there’s stuff we can share, and either I or they will share what’s available.

24

Thanks for your reply. I found this post more informative than the last one.

I agree that UX/DX needs to improve, but short term I think it should not be the top priority. Developers and users will go where there is opportunity. They will suffer bad UX/DX for that opportunity. Users bridged to Base via Etherscan to buy $BALD, just to get rugged. Blast gamified TVL to bring billions of dollars to the chain before it was even live. Things like working state validation or throughput hardly seem to matter–people will pay $3 for a failing Base transaction before they bridge to Starknet because there is not the same opportunity on Starknet.

I know it sounds like the chicken-and-egg problem, but if you want to foster high quality applications, the number one thing to focus on is bringing users and TVL to the chain, which looks like opportunity to the developers. The applications will fast follow. Concretely, that means:

  • Change the narrative: the e-beggar joke has gone too far. Demonstrate to the users that you respect their time, effort and attention. That is what this proposal aims to do.
  • Rebuild trust: make important decisions in the open with participation from the community of delegates and builders you’ve already fostered.

The better learning here IMO is that you shouldn’t have to hide well designed airdrop criteria. Every airdrop will be farmed. You just want the farming to be beneficial for the chain, and low value bot-like activity most definitely is not what you want to reward.

25

Thanks to @sendmoodz for this thread and to @elibensasson for addressing all these questions.

after all, we need to listen to all ideas that come forward.

So, please allow me to share my ideas. :slight_smile:

If I was to design an airdrop program where the main objective is to reclaim the community confidence, I would build it around these three principles:

  • Be transparent: make the criteria as transparent as possible, make the community vote to ratify the program.
  • Show a strong commitment to the community: the second airdrop would have to be bigger than the first one.
  • Be fair: the airdrop should reward commitment to Starknet and strongly penalize sybils.

To fit these goals, I would create a StarkXP program where:

  • Users can access a page where they can see how many StarkXPs they have collected.
  • You must activate your StarkXP account by following a strong anti-sybil procedure (for instance, the Ethereum wallet used to initially fund the Starknet wallet through the official bridge would have to get a 20 Gitcoin passport score, and of course all the sybil wallets that merged up their airdropped $STRK tokens into one wallet would be excluded).
  • A snapshot is taken shortly before the program is initiated, and this snapshot is used to grant the initial StarkXPs.
  • These XPs would be proportional to a combination of criteria (number of transactions, number of contract interactions, volume, number of active weeks, account age, etc.)
  • XPs would be granted for both your activity before and after the first airdrop. But your activity after the first airdrop would have a much stronger weight. (The idea is to give something to those who were excluded from the first airdrop yet were very active on Starknet, while the main objective would be to reward your active users post-airdrop.)
  • People who dumped their airdrop $STRK tokens would have some form of penalty. (It doesn’t make much sense to airdrop tokens to people you know will dump on you.) For instance, to activate your StarkXP account you may have to hold at least the amount of tokens you got airdropped and you would still have to hold these tokens at the end of the program to be eligible to the second airdrop. Your StarkXPs would be reset to 0 otherwise.
  • Some trophies would grant additional StarkXPs like holding an Argent Xplorer NFT, holding all the Xplorer NFTs, holding a StarkID domain, having provided LPs, etc. (Reward everything the community complained about.)
  • StarkXPs would be granted for having voted for DAO proposals and for holding $vSTRK. Users involved in the governance are probably less likely to dump their tokens. (It could be some based on the percentage of proposals you voted for and your average $vSTRK holding based on daily snapshots, with a capping for whales not to unbalance the system, claiming most of the XP. It could also be a global multiplier, like a 1.1-1.5x bonus according to your involvement in the governance.)
  • Users could opt for locking their $STRK to boost their StarkXP (like a 1.5x bonus for a vesting over 6 months, 2x for a 12 months vesting, etc.). Users most likely to hold and to commit for long term should get larger allocations.
  • A time-limited campaign would be launched at the same time as the StarkXP program is announced where users could accomplish missions to earn additional StarkXPs (The program shouldn’t last more than 3 months, you don’t want to create an ever-ending XP campaign like Linea, as the longer it lasts the more likely the community will feel farmed and the more likely they will turn against you. A definitive end date would have to be announced from the beginning.)
  • XPs granted by the missions would have to be finetuned to stay in balance with the XPs earned thanks to your Starknet activity. (Loyal long-term Starknet users shouldn’t feel like their commitment worth less than 1 to 3 months missions. The maximum amount of XPs you can earn with your long term activity should be higher than the maximum you can earn with the missions.)
  • The final amount of tokens airdropped would be directly proportional to the XPs earned.

I believe 6% of the supply got airdropped during the first provision campaign, with only about 50% going to the users?
Next airdrop should be bigger, using some of the remaining “community provisions” and “community rebates” allocations. Like 6% but entirely dedicated to the users this time. You would still have 6% for a future third airdrop (or 3% for two additional airdrops).

To regain the trust of the community, you could also make some announcements at the same time the program is announced like:

  • Locked tokens won’t be stackable. (Alternatively, Starkware/investor locked tokens won’t be stackable. Vested tokens earned through the StartXP program would be.)
  • A part of the 20% “early contributors” allocation has been reallocated to the community (I don’t see this happening as it would likely create too many internal issues and legal complications, but it would definitely send a strong signal.)
  • Any announcement that shows the community is of the utmost importance would be good of course.

By rewarding both the former user activity and by rewarding missions, you encourage your users to stay active on Starknet after the airdrop, just by themselves, totally unsupervised, while also being able to guide them into using specific apps and protocols, adopting specific behaviors and exploring the ecosystem thanks to the missions.

I’ve just improved these ideas in a few minutes as I was writing this post, so it is very imperfect and would actually require a lot of work to be correctly drafted into an actual workable system, but I just wanted to share some ideas with the community and hopefully some of them may proved to be useful. Thanks for reading! :grin:

26

Hello everyone !

Allow me to give my opinion on this exchange.
Clearly I am no one, and as I am no one I am also everyone.

From my point of view, a few simple but clear points:

  • The previous airdrop was a failure. More than a simple failure, it has created anger and frustration to such an extent that a wave of misinformation and hatred remains.
  • No matter how angry people are, above all they are greedy. If there is enough free money on the line, they will come back to try their luck. A second aidrop will help digest the pill, that’s a fact. Not considering a second one is a big risk. But this is not enough to build long-term loyalty.
  • Compared to other blockchains, use cases/Dapps are missing on Starknet. So not much interest in coming to the channel. In addition to having few Dapps, there is no quest-type incentive with points to come and use the protocols. This will encourage people to come and interact regularly and over a long time. This is also how many Dapps on Solana, Scroll, Linea, ZkSync etc… attract users and maintain their interest. Greed again and again. Be careful not to overuse this system otherwise it can also create frustration. Linea Park with LXPs, Zklink nova with aggregation parade and Layer 3 with its cubes are good examples.
  • There are no Dapps linked to the current narratives on Starknet (Rwa? AI? DePin? RaaS? LST? RST?) In addition to not being convinced by Starknet, the choice for investing is currently limited.
  • Another wallet? Seriously ? and I can’t reuse the seed phrase to change between Braavos and ArgentX, come on guys seriously?
    Other things could be said but this would already be a good start.

Thank you for reading, looking forward to discussing.

27

Thank you to @sendmoodz and @elibensasson for this exchange.

I want to provide some input as a Starknet user, and as someone who has used many other chains.

The Starknet airdrop proved that an understanding of user wants was absent among Starknet leadership, and this must be remedied.

To do so, we can then look at the results of what competitors have done in order to get that sense. Because again, clearly we are lacking. The best tech does not always win. Most blockchain users now are more chain agnostic than before, so we can safely say that all blockchain users are potential Starknet users.

@sendmoodz is right in his assessment that, while it seems like a chicken and egg problem, it has been proven that prioritizing user growth will improve the developer experience at least as much, if not more, than prioritizing development will improve the user experience. And this improvement will create the flywheel that brings even more users, which will bring more developers, and so on.

I urge Starknet leadership to take a very close look at what other both chains have done that has succeeded in generating and maintaining attention and engagement. Ignoring this would demonstrate arrogance and inexperience.

My broad recommendation is to, for now, forget about the tech. The tech works. As @sendmoodz said, users will suffer through far worse tech if the opportunity is present. So now, all efforts need to be focused on incentivizing user adoption.

More specifically, as a start, another airdrop is imperative. Anyone who received maximum allocation in the previous airdrop must be deemed ineligible. User activity must be taken into account. While working on this, I would also recommend the creation of an development incentive program similar to that of a certain Paradigm-backed, L2 with native yield. However, there were several mistakes made with that program, so projects must be much more throughly vetted, to start.

I have many other ideas, but I wonder what the general feeling is toward these initial suggestions @elibensasson. Because as a simple e-beggar with mere hundreds of thousands of dollars in transaction volume across half a dozen protocols over the better part of a year who was eligible for 600 tokens, I want to be sure that you’re not just listening - you’re taking notes.

28

微信截图_20240418162305
微信截图_20240418162305618×923 115 KB

As far as I know, this project received token rewards from developers, but since receiving the rewards, they have disappeared. This is what you call a developer.

29

Some additional thoughts about how the StarkXP program I mentioned in my previous post could look like.

(Please note this is far from being correctly balanced and with major omissions. I’m still improvising here. :sweat_smile:)

Transactions:

Before first snapshot | Between first and second snapshot

  • 10: 500 XPs | 1,000 XPs
  • 25: 750 XPs | 1,500 XPs
  • 50: 1,000 XPs | 2,000 XPs
  • 100: 1,250 XPs | 2,500 XPs

Contract interactions:

Before first snapshot | Between first and second snapshot

  • 10: 250 XPs | 500 XPs
  • 25: 500 XPs | 1,000 XPs
  • 50: 750 XPs | 1,500 XPs
  • 100: 1,000 XPs | 2,000 XPs

Volume:

Before first snapshot | Between first and second snapshot

  • $1,000: 250 XPs | 500 XPs
  • $5,000: 500 XPs | 1,000 XPs
  • $10,000: 750 XPs | 1,500 XPs
  • $50,000: 1,000 XPs | 2,000 XPs
  • $100,000: 1,250 XPs | 2,500 XPs

Age: (first to last transaction period)

  • 6 months: 500 XPs
  • 12 months: 1,000 XPs
  • 18 months: 1,500 XPs
  • 24 months: 2,000 XPs

Regularity: (number of active weeks since genesis)

  • 10: 500 XPs
  • 20: 1,000 XPs
  • 30: 1,500 XPs
  • 40: 2,000 XPs
  • 50: 2,500 XPs

Average account value: (Multiple snapshots would be taken from since genesis.)

  • $100: 500 XPs
  • $1,000: 1,000 XPs
  • $10,000: 2,000 XPs

Governance (average vSTRK holding):

  • 100 $vSTRK: 500 XPs
  • 500 $vSTKR: 1,000 XPs
  • 1,000 $vSTRK: 1,500 XPs
  • 5,000 $vSTRK: 2,000 XPs
  • 10,000 $vSTKR: 2,500 XPs

You or your delegate must have voted for at least 50% of the proposals to earn these XPs.

Liquidity providing: (provided over at least 1 month)

  • $500: 500 XPs
  • $1,000: 1,000 XPs
  • $5,000: 1,500 XPs
  • $10,000: 2,000 XPs
  • $50,000: 2,500 XPs

(It would be complex to be calculated, but we don’t want people to just deposit and immediately remove to create LP volume.)

Argent Xplorer:

  • Holding 1 NFT: 250 XPs
  • Holding 4 NFTs: 500 XPs
  • Holding all the NFTs: 750 XPs

Starknet.id:

  • Holding 1 Starknet.id: 500 XPs

zK enthusiasts:

(Give a reward to users active on other zK blockchains. It would encourage people active on other zK projects like zkSync, Linea or Scroll to join the airdrop campaign. Even if they had no prior activity on Starknet, they could participate in the missions.)

  • Having a total of more than 25 transactions on at least 1 other zK chain: 500 XPs
  • Having a total of more than 50 transactions on at least 2 other zK chains: 1,000 XPs
  • Having a total of more than 100 transactions on at least 3 other zK chains: 2,000 XPs

(User would link their Ethereum account(s) to earn this bonus.)

=> Maximum earnable XPs: 25,250 XPs

Missions:

  • About 50 missions over 1 to 3 months to earn between 50 XPs and 500 XPs based on the cost in time and money, for a maximum of 25,000 XPs.
  • 90% of the XPs would be protocol missions (discover and use the Starknet ecosystem)
  • 10% of the XPs would be social missions (follow Starknet related accounts on X, like and repost specific posts, etc.) => Let’s give visibility to Starknet on X
  • Let’s make Starknet cool and degen. One mission would involve an official Starknet meme coin. An official Starknet mascot would be created and airdropped to every mission participant based on their current XPs. Still holding your allocation at the end of the program would grant you 500 XPs. Holding 50% more than you received would grant you 750 XPs, holding two times your allocation would grant 1000 XPs. Providing liquidity for the meme coin could be rewarded too. (It would be strongly implied holding your coins would help with future airdrops.) If this memecoin was to look cool and price to pump, many people would go crazy about it. And it may encourage the creation of other meme coins on the chain. I feel like Starknet is seen as a serious and complex blockchain mostly fit for developers. We should make Starknet look cool and bring fun into it. If successful, a meme character would create an emotional attachment between Starknet and the community, which would be good especially after the initial airdrop backlash.

=> Maximum earnable points of the whole program: ~50,000 XPs
=> You would need at least 5,000 XPs to be eligible for the airdrop
=> You would at least a 20 Gitcoin passport score (or a similar very strong anti-sybil measure) to be eligible for the airdrop (based on the Ethereum account(s) used to fund the wallet, or by asking users to link a unique Ethereum account within the StarkXP app.) A 25+, 30+ score could even add a boost to XPs.
=> All sybil accounts identified after the first airdrops (by sending their tokens to another unique account) would be excluded.
=> Your allocation would be directly proportional to your XPs
=> If you earned $STRK during the first airdrop, the wallet must hold at least the amount of airdropped $STRK to be eligible for the next airdrop.

One more time, thanks for reading! :grin:

30

I am a victim with Stockholm syndrome who received 0.5 STRK in DeFi spring and who no longer received a penny from Starnet. At the same time, I continue to believe and hope that my efforts, time and liquidity, which I provided in various protocols, will be rewarded and I will be able to earn, and not lose everything. And it doesn’t matter how much money I have: whether it’s $100 or $100,000

My commission costs have been about $100 due to the network being slow and expensive for a long time, which is at least a loss of more than $300 because instead of buying and holding bitcoin, I chose to spend those funds to test the technology.

arrogance, laughter and an attempt to prick the community of poor hard workers is very low and unprofessional. In the end, I was banned from Twitter because I wrote the truth (without insults!), but I wrote a lot and I will continue to write because it really hurt and touched me and also affected all those who are unprofessional and new to the crypto space, these people trusted me, spent their few savings and got nothing…

I’m not here to complain. I’m here to help you fix the situation, because if you take a live dissatisfied user like me as an example and find a way to satisfy and change my attitude towards your network, you can probably fix the situation more globally

I am an opinion leader with over 5,000 subscribers on the social networks telegram and YouTube. all these people repeated after me, listened to my recommendations and do you know what they got? As much as I do, that is, nothing. Do you know what they did later? the same as me - they took their crumbs and went to look for a better relationship from the team in other networks.
ZkSync, Linea, Scroll and Base should be grateful to you.

think about why you don’t have support on social media, but there is so much hate and hate? because all the awards were taken by bots, which, thanks to scripts and software bots, scattered a minimum of money into their wallets, made several simple transactions even without touching UX (but simply by means of working with the network) and safely left the remaining money lying around on wallets.

real users spent their time and money on working with crown quests on the day of your snapshot, can you imagine the absurdity of the situation?

I repeat that my message is not a claim or an attempt to accuse. I have already survived this failure and moved on, but because of the syndrome that I wrote about at the beginning, I am still here and I want Starknet to succeed. This will be a good precedent for returning and rising from the ashes.

So, you didn’t even count the interaction with the main bridge, which was very expensive, in the spring, when the Arbitrum distributed the drop, at that time I transferred my funds to your network (the sibyls took the air directly from the CEX).

You are talking about the gaming industry and the vector of development in this direction. I support this trend and even played several games that you launched, but I didn’t tell anyone about it anymore, because I’m just ashamed and disgusted to urge my subscribers to spend time and money on your network again. And that’s what most people think!
and sibyls and software scripts will not play games, they have already received everything they wanted from you and safely sold everything on the market, and those who did not sell continue to put pressure on the price now, because they do not need your technology.

it seems that I have already written so much, so I will conclude my thought:
after reading the comments here, in a narrow circle of interested parties, it seems to me that the developers and the team are having a hard time looking at the situation through the eyes of the user.

I am the user. A disgruntled, banned and money-losing live member of the network. Re-read my message again and try to get into my boots and look at the situation through the eyes of a simple user, whom you are so waiting for on your network.

By the way, if you just try to launch quests now, following the example of Linea, hardly anyone will come to you, this will cause even more negativity. You need to admit your mistakes first, try to fix them so that people become more supportive and then try to capture people’s attention.

P.S. Starknet technology is really revolutionary and advanced, but the revolution is not made by 8 people.
8 people can solve issues at a round table, but they need the support of the majority of ordinary people for the revolution to take place

Good luck to you! Hopefully, Starknet will become synonymous with the Phoenix bird. Sincerely, electronic beggar))) I’m kidding

31

Starknet’s infrastructure and profit-making effect are difficult to retain users.

The recent example of 8 meme coins is a good meme, and many people I know have also participated, but the internal feedback is that

  • the strk infrastructure experience is too poor. Previously, it took a lot of effort to buy and brush out the coins.
  • My wallet cannot be opened.
  • The stark wallet has blocked most people from opening it.
  • Argent are difficult to use.

In addition, on the day when starknet distributed airdrops, all meme coins in the ecosystem plummeted.
As a high-heat meme coin, 8 now only has 246.74k FDV, and most of the participants have lost money.

It’s important to consider what users are currently thinking, why they are using Starknet, and how to encourage them to continue using it.

32

When often asking why people are reluctant to using Starknet one of the main reasons is that since it’s built on Cairo it does not allow them to use Starknet from their main wallet i.e. Rabby or MM. I find it to be a major obstacle to drive mass adoption beyond the deceptive airdrop aspect.

33

I agree with Leighton that Starknet must have a strong narrative. I am helping to build the Starknet ecosystem in Costa Rica and Brazil to attract end users. For example, we are creating collaborative businesses in consolidated industries (web2), such as coffee in Costa Rica where anyone who loves coffee can buy it using Starknet.
I also give talks and the narrative I use:
if I am talking with devs
Starknet: Secure, UX friendly, and scalable Web3 for all

if I am talking with newbies in web3:
Starknet: Secure, user friendly, and scalable Web3 for all

This is the way I see Starknet.

34

Thx! Curious: which Wallets do you use, which do you recommend to your users? How’s the UX?

35

Indeed, this is a point that needs improvement. I know that MM support is coming, through Snaps, but it’s not as easy as core MM. We’re working on it.

And a message to @0xcryptus (the system doesn’t allow me to put it in a separate reply, so using this one):

Dear @0xcryptus,

I am listening, I am taking notes. What you say makes a lot of sense, so please say more. And we’re listening not merely for the sake of listening, but for planning future moves and fixing past mistakes.

Thanks!
Eli

36

Thanks for your candid and informed message. I’ll repeat something I’ve said in the past: We made a mistake, in particular with respect to the criteria for Starknet users in Provisions. We are listening to valuable feedback (like yours) and thinking of best ways to move forward, and fix, or at least address, past mistakes.

Hope to have more to say in future. For all I can say is: respect for you as someone who’s trying out new technologies like Starknet, Scroll, Linea and others. It’s important to learn the space, offer feedback, and help it grow.

37

You sure it was executed flawlessly? You guys mislabeled IMX users and realized that after more than a month only to come up with a public update on 20th of March saying the affected users will be able to claim the airdrop in the start of April. it’s 21st of April today and the issue has not been resolved till date, not to mention the fact that the price had dropped significantly the airdrop amount has dropped a lot in terms of value yet those users have not been able to claim so far. You guys mislabeled self custodial wallets as custodial wallets which I believe could have been verified with the help of mere signature from a wallet proving the user owns the keys. So no it was not executed “Flawlessly” and it has not been fixed as of now. A lot of users could have been eligible for avail’s airdrop if they would’ve been able to claim their Starknet airdrop. But unfortunately all they get is being kicked out of discord or perhaps, copy pasta responses from the mods.

I have nothing against you but the fact that you mentioned it was executed flawlessly is not true.

Why is nobody talking about this?

38

Hey Moody,

I was a big fan of your vision and commitment to Startnet, especially when you were building Ekubo around their tech and innovation. But this recent thread has me questioning that a bit.

The current sentiment on CT seems more driven by emotional responses from users who took risks on the airdrop, rather than a reflection of Starknet’s actual performance or technology. It’s like buying a memecoin and then getting mad when it loses value.

Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and Starknet is no exception. But I see this as a test for users who truly understand the potential of Starknet. Those chasing quick profits will come and go, just like with any platform. It’s the dedicated users who will stay the track.

Starknet has a lot on its plate, so it shouldn’t get too bogged down by this. They should focus on building and making the real user benefit from that.

Good day!

39

Hello Prof. @elibensasson!

You are welcome! Pura Vida!

I thank you for creating the ZK-Starks which triggered all these amazing things in the Starknet ecosystem.

Regarding your questions, let me share with you our context.

We decided to choose consolidated niches that have millions of users but are still marketed via web2.

In Costa Rica, we’re fostering the Cofiblocks initiative, which holds immense potential to reach millions of coffee consumers and introduce them to the Starknet ecosystem.

We are creating a marketplace with Starknet to allow coffee lovers to buy coffee via web3 (Starknet). After that, we will help them to learn about defi to start connecting with Okubo, Nostra, zkLend, and other amazing Starknet initiatives.

Argent Web Wallet has emerged as the preferred choice due to its user-friendly interface, similar to the account creation process in web2 platforms.

We’re currently in the initial testing phase with a small group of English-speaking users to refine the onboarding experience.
However, to truly onboard a wider audience, we need Spanish and Portuguese interfaces for smart wallets.
Those who tested the Argent Web Wallet English version found it user-friendly and provided feedback for future improvements.
Our goal is to expand our testing beyond the current English-speaking group, but this hinges on securing funding for pilot programs in Costa Rica and Brazil.
I hope to share more news in the future.
Have a nice week!

40

Hello again, I would like to bring up another point regarding the vision in the discussion. Moving away from the tedious discussion of airdrops and all that, rather focusing on the question of what Starknet should stand for. It has already been mentioned that users are increasingly agnostic regarding the chain. So, if we witness everything becoming more of a commodity, what should Starknet be the guiding star for? How about privacy? No one really dares to tackle this theme head-on yet, or they push it into the future, but we all know it is fundamental for society. One just needs to look at the world with open eyes.

I believe a focus on privacy could signify a massive narrative shift for Starknet. Moving away from the negative connotation towards a fundamentally relevant part of the new world. Of course, internal work can continue as usual, but with a strong emphasis on providing privacy. Because blockchain without good privacy is rather dystopian and therefore not humane. This is what Starknet should be known for. I think this will attract the right people in the long run, as this question becomes increasingly relevant when crypto moves away from ‘number go up’ towards providing relevant functionalities for a modern world. Moving away from the Red Ocean commodity fight towards the blue ocean as the base layer of integrity.
Many applications (private or public) will require different levels and implementations of privacy, but maximum privacy would be so crucial, and Starknet could form this base layer.