Decentralized finance (DeFi) oracles network Pyth will kick off an airdrop of roughly 255 million PYTH tokens to its users and community members beginning in just four days, the network announced Thursday.
Over 90,000 wallets will be eligible to claim PYTH tokens through the airdrop once it opens on November 20 at 2:00 pm UTC, according to Pyth. Users of dapps that rely on Pyth network data across 27 blockchains—including Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Optimism—may be eligible for a token allocation, according to the network. Pyth Network Discord administrators and holders of Pyth NFTs are also likely to receive an allotment.
After November 20, the airdrop will remain open until February 18. DeFi users can check their potential eligibility for the airdrop, as well as the amount of PYTH they are set to receive, at the network’s airdrop check page.
Pyth users in several countries, however, will be ineligible to participate by default, due to mitigating legal factors. Residents of the United States and the United Kingdom will not be able to claim PYTH tokens; nor will residents of North Korea, Ukraine, Cuba, Syria, Iran, Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and eight other nations and territories.
Pyth’s native token will have an initial circulating supply of 1.5 billion, according to the network. 8.5 billion additional PYTH tokens will unlock between six and 42 months from launch.
DeFi oracle networks like Pyth connect blockchains with data sources from the off-chain world, allowing DeFi smart contracts to execute based on inputs and outputs from real-world events and data. They can enable smart contracts, for example, to automatically order products when an inventory drops; to pay out agreements that hinge on the price of stocks and commodities; or to track carbon emissions and tax a company if a certain level is exceeded. Oracle networks are central to the growing integration of the crypto market and traditional financial markets, as well as the application of smart contracts to traditional businesses.
As intermediaries of information, oracle networks can also be exploited. Last fall, a hacker managed to drain $100 million from decentralized exchange Mango Markets by manipulating the oracle-reported price of the MNGO token.
Pyth is the fourth-largest such oracle network by total value secured, according to DeFi Llama; Pyth’s chief competitor, Chainlink, boasts over nine times the value secured, and a dominant 45% market share, compared with Pyth’s 4.83%.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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