Blockchain
Volume on the Stargate cross-chain bridge is up 30% in the past 24 hours as investors try to meet criteria for a rumored LayerZero airdrop.
Data from DefiLlama shows that activity on Stargate (STG) has also increased significantly over the past five weeks, with the protocol announcing that it crossed $1 billion in monthly volume for the first time earlier this month. Stargate is a gateway to LayerZero and accounts for most of the capital flowing into the protocol.
Trading volume for STG is also up 95% in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, the token was trading at 78 cents, after gaining 2% on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap.
Although LayerZero has not announced that it will be releasing a token, the protocol code on Gitbook states “ZRO Token Holder”, suggesting that a native token will be issued.
LayerZero is an omnichain protocol that communicates with different blockchains, it facilitates the transfer of assets and arbitrary data across different blockchains. Earlier this month, the company raised $120 million at a $3 billion valuation with investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Samsung Next and Sequoia Capital.
This caught the attention of crypto traders as a number of high-profile airdrops over the past 12 months delivered significant returns for a minimal amount of effort. Optimism (OP), Aptos (APT), Arbitrum (ARB), and Blur (BLUR) all released lucrative airdrops that rewarded early adopters.
In addition to interacting with the Stargate bridge, airdrop fighters jump on Stargate governance proposals in hopes of receiving a larger allocation from LayerZero. More than 6.4 million STG tokens were staked for a recent proposal to make the decentralized exchange Velodrome an STG hub on the Optimism blockchain.
LayerZero did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.