The Massive XLM Airdrop Hits Wall of Criticism

Cryptocurrency wallet and data provider Blockchain has announced an airdrop of USD 125 million in Stellar Lumens (XLM), nearly half a billion tokens, in an attempt to boost crypto adoption. However, the news didn’t elicit as much of a positive response as the company might have hoped: the community is not persuaded that this is the best way to foster adoption, arguing that it doesn’t make sense.

Even immediately following the announcement on Twitter, replies like “This must be a scam” began to flood in. Pierre Rochard, founder of Bitcoin Advisory, a firm that specializes in Bitcoin’s economics and software engineering, wrote, “Be very careful about using services that enable ‘give away’ scams, it likely means that they are starved for revenue and will do anything for a quick buck. Don’t trust them, don’t trust people that are associated with them.” Although co-founder of Blockchain Nicolas Cary immediately replied that this is no scam and “We’re really going to give away the money,” Rochard was quick to point out: “You’re not giving away the money, you’re giving away XLM.”

Recently, Blockchain launched the foundation for the Blockchain Airdrops, together with the criteria that will guide the company in selecting which tokens we will airdrop to our users.

A big problem that the community has with this airdrop is the fact that you have to create a Blockchain wallet and go through their KYC (know your customer) procedure to be eligible for the airdrop. Bitcoin developer Udi Wertheimer writes, “If you’re a [blockchain.info] wallet user, this is a pretty bad deal for you. You should be asking for *way* more than USD 25 to let them attach your identity to years of bitcoin transaction history.”

User @AnselLindner joins in, saying, “Reminds me of the United Bitcoin scam. Give me your data, let us track you, and you get free stuff.” Popular economist and Bitcoin investor Tuur Demeester adds:

The only people that seem to be really happy about this airdrop are Stellar holders, calling it a great way to distribute ownership.

XLM price chart:

And, of course, this community wouldn’t be what it is without memes about the situation surfacing almost instantly.