Optimism announces new $26 million airdrop to over 31,000 addresses

Layer 2 network Optimism announced its third airdrop on Monday, allocating 19.4 million OP -1.88% tokens ($26 million) to 31,870 addresses that participated in delegation activities of its DAO called the Optimism Collective.

This airdrop, much like its two preceding airdrop rounds, was aimed at bolstering engagement on the Layer 2 network and rewarding user participation. The average reward was 600 OP tokens ($840), but it varied from user to user based on various criteria, according to the team.

Optimism is a Layer 2 network built on top of the Ethereum network. It leverages optimistic-rollup technology to help scale decentralized applications.

Eligibility criteria for the third airdrop

The rewards were calculated based on the number of OP tokens delegated by a user multiplied by the duration for which they were held.

A minimum threshold (OP tokens delegated x days) was set at 18,000 units with an eligibility period of six months from January 20 to July 20. If a user delegated a minimum of 180 OP tokens over 100 days during this period, they would be eligible. 

Optimism users who participated in at least one on-chain proposal (during the eligibility period) also received a 2x multiplier for their rewards. To ensure a fair distribution, rewards were capped at 10,000 OP tokens for each address.

The Optimism Collective’s third airdrop to date came some days after the project distributed the remainder of the funds from its first airdrop (conducted in May 2022) directly to the eligible addresses that had not yet claimed their rewards.

With the third round of airdrop concluded, a pool of about 570 million OP tokens is earmarked for future distributions.