The ongoing airdrop event by Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer has triggered discussions regarding the strict requirements to claim rewards. Leandro Schlottchauer, CEO of Kuyen Labs and a smart contract developer, criticized the surprise announcement strategy, emphasizing that the crypto community needs to adjust to the evolving nature of airdrop events.

Mohak Agarwal, CEO of Claystack, a liquid staking protocol, voiced concerns about EigenLayer's surprise airdrop announcement, cautioning that such methods might generate initial excitement but often lead to disappointment in the long run. He highlighted the tendency for projects to offer a small initial airdrop supply, gauge user reaction, and later distribute additional tokens to appease concerns.

EigenLayer, a significant decentralized finance protocol with a locked value of $15.67 billion, revealed through an unexpected blog post on April 29 that only 5% of the initial token supply would be allocated to early users, and laid out other allocation processes.

In response to criticisms from the crypto community regarding various aspects of the airdrop event, EigenLayer announced on May 3 that an extra 28 million EIGEN would be distributed to 280,000 qualifying wallets. Despite the growth in crypto development activities, recent airdrop events have struggled to maintain initial interest. For instance, the cross-chain messaging platform Wormhole conducted an airdrop in April transferring $800 million worth of W tokens to selected users, with the post-event valuation reaching an impressive $22 billion in diluted market value. However, the token's value subsequently decreased by over 50% to trade at $0.6457. Similarly, the native token of the Ethereum Layer-2 network Starknet, STRK, experienced a 43% depreciation following its February airdrop, where airdrop hunters allegedly used copied developer accounts on GitHub to claim STRK tokens.