The airdrop conditions are harsh and the secondary valuation is inverted. Is there still hope for Story Protocol?

Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher

As a16z's leading investment project with a crypto project with a valuation of up to US$2.25 billion, Story Protocol's recent performance surprised community users.

On February 13, Story Protocol's official official finally revealed the high-profile details of the airdrop plan. However, unlike the generous feedback expected, this airdrop plan has caused a lot of controversy and dissatisfaction. Many studios and investors have said that the conditions for this airdrop are too harsh, and the witch alone has three lines of defense, and the amount of airdrop tokens issuance is far lower than expected, and has been "reversed".

To make matters worse, on the same day, Story Protocol Token (IP) officially launched TGE and immediately launched exchanges such as CoinBase, Bithumb, and MEXC. The market performance of tokens after they were launched is also surprising. After the coin price opened from US$2.3, it has fallen all the way, reaching as low as US$1.7. The market value and financing valuation of the secondary market have already shown an inverted phenomenon.

This series of events undoubtedly brought a heavy blow to Story Protocol's community users. Many users said that they were unspeakable about the disappointment of the project's airdrop plan and TGE performance, and even began to question the project's long-term development prospects. Some users have publicly protected their rights in the official Story Protocol community.

**Airdrop conditions are harsh: the number is much lower than expected,

multiple witch defense lines, and the Gitcoin account must be 20 points**

There are three main controversies about Story Protocol airdrop tokens: the number of airdrops issued to users is much lower than expected, the witch review conditions are too strict, and the threshold for receiving airdrops is too high.

Regarding the number of airdrop tokens, the expected number of airdrop tokens issued by Story Protocol to community users is far lower than user expectations, and has been reduced by less than 5% from the initial 10%.

In the token IP economic model released on February 7, the total supply is 1 billion, with 25% initial unlocking, of which 10% of the tokens will be used for early user incentives.

However, in this 10% of the tokens are not directly airdropped to the community. Only 5% are directly allocated to users, and users cannot fully unlock on the first day of TGE, and they need to gradually pass through a series of continuous initial incentive activities. Release; another 5% of the tokens will be distributed to ecological projects, which will be distributed to users by the project party through its incentive activities.

This arrangement broke the fantasy of many investors' direct application, disappointing many people. Moreover, since the official will crack down on hair masturbation, a lot of hair masturbation will be filtered out, and the unclaimed user incentive portion will be allocated to the project party, which means that the proportion of tokens actually allocated to ecological projects is likely to exceed that of 5%, the share directly allocated to community users is far less than 5%.

In this airdrop, Story Protocol showed a zero-tolerance attitude towards witch behavior and adopted an extremely strict screening mechanism to combat witches and furf farmers.

According to official disclosures, Story Protocol has hired three independent companies to provide advice and analyze on-chain and off-chain behaviors to filter witches.

Even if you successfully pass the witch screening, when collecting airdrop tokens, users still need to meet a certain Gitcoin Passport score (20 points) threshold to prove their personality uniqueness and withdraw coins in a timely manner.

This requirement of Story Protocol undoubtedly increases the threshold for airdrop acquisition and keeps studios and farmers who swipe accounts in batches out. Some community users have complained about this, believing that the project party should clearly state at the beginning of the user's participation in the interaction that the participating address needs to meet certain Passport score requirements, rather than just after the user has invested time and energy to complete the interaction task and contributed the interaction. The data did not suddenly propose this condition until the eve of the airdrop collection. This approach makes some users feel that they are being "uncleared" by the project party.

In addition, there is also controversy over the conditions for the Chronicles Genesis NFT airdrop released by Story Protocol last year. Some users questioned the possibility of unfair insider trading, the so-called "rat trading". Specifically, the project party not only requires community users to hold Chronicles NFT, but also sets an additional threshold for having to hold Odyssey NFT at the same time to obtain a short investment space. This dual condition puts users who purchase Chronicles NFTs in order to obtain airdrops to lose money. It is reported that the purchase price of these NFTs is about 0.1 ETH.

IP **token secondary market breaks the issuance and valuation

reverses**

In addition to the severe controversy surrounding the airdrop incident, the market trend of IP tokens has fallen below the psychological defense line of community users. After launching the secondary market, IP tokens have fallen below the issuance price, and the currency price has fallen below its original valuation. It shows an upside down phenomenon.

According to OKX market data, since the IP token was unveiled in the secondary market on February 13, its price has continued to fall from the opening price of US$2.25, and it once fell to US$1.7, and the current price is US$1.92. The total market value has now been adjusted to US$1.92 billion, and the currency price in the secondary market is lower than its early valuation.

Although in the current cryptocurrency field, the phenomenon of valuation in secondary markets is common. But it is worth noting that Story Protocol is an encryption project led by A16Z three times. In August last year, the project also successfully completed a US$80 million Series B financing led by a16z Crypto, with a cumulative financing of up to US$140 million and a valuation that once reached US$2.25 billion.

So, why did Story Protocol perform so weakly? User @lejintian666 once pointed out in a tweet that the biggest problem of Story Protocol is the lack of performance. Since the story behind the project has not yet been implemented and there is no actual performance support, the valuation is naturally difficult to maintain. In order to seek benefits, the entrepreneurial team can only pass the strictest possible. The witches to increase their bargaining chips are obviously difficult to win market recognition.

Faced with the sluggish performance of IP tokens in the secondary market, Crypto KOL @ Chen Jian Jason also expressed his views on social media. He said all actions of the Story Protocol were unexpected. Generally speaking, airdrops are negatively correlated with coin prices, but after the airdrop caused controversy, Story did not stabilize market sentiment by pulling the market. In addition, because Story failed to log in to large exchanges, the listing fee was not paid, and the number of airdrops was limited, the chips in the market were scarce, which almost became a "stand-alone coin". However, looking back at projects that also received large VC financing but did not enter the large institute, the secondary market often performs well and will prove their strength and value by pulling the market. But Story's current performance is disappointing and seems to be in a state of disgrace.