A new Solana project called “Less Fn Gas” captured the attention of Crypto Twitter earlier this week when it airdropped 40% of its LFG token supply to Ethereum users.
It was a ploy to entice Ethereum maxis to give Solana a try—hop over the proverbial fence, see that the grass on the SOL DeFi field might actually be greener, and, well, spend less f’n gas. (That is, of course, spend less on transaction fees, which can be quite expensive on Ethereum.)
And despite soaring to a $129 million fully diluted market cap, and then crashing down to around $25 million once the hype began to fade, the team behind the project isn’t stopping there. They’re now planning a second airdrop—one that will be even more inclusive than the first—and establish a grants program for Ethereum devs who make the switch to Solana, a pseudonymous core team member of LFG tells Decrypt.
Over 50,000 ETH users claimed the LFG airdrop within the first 24 hours of the token launching on Monday. Wormhole, a popular bridge between Ethereum and Solana saw $35 million in volume the same day—the first time it’s seen an increase since Solana meme coins started cooling down last week. It apparently burned too hot too fast, though, and the token is now down roughly 80% from its peak on Tuesday.
One of the pseudonymous devs behind LFG, who goes by Bobby Axelrod (borrowing the name and likeness of the character from the Showtime series “Billions”), told Decrypt that he’s spoken with high-profile members of the Solana community about building a project to bring Ethereum users over to Solana.
“I don’t know how many of the 50,000 users that claimed are genuinely new to Solana, but judging by how many DMs I have asking how to set up a damn Phantom wallet, I’d guess there’s a lot,” he said, referring to the popular Solana wallet Phantom.
The project got the attention of some of the key thought leaders from the Solana community, including Kyle Salmani, Multicoin Capital founder, and even Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.
Unfortunately, scammers also noticed the quickly surging token and posted phishing links in the replies to tweets about the project. If you’ve spent any amount of time on Crypto Twitter, you know this happens all the time. But this one managed to fool the CEO and co-founder of Nest Wallet, Bill Lou, who fell victim to the wallet-draining scam.
I’m devastated guys…
I just got scammed out of $125k of stEth while trying to claim the $LFG airdrop. And I’m a fking founder of a wallet startup that’s trying to improve wallet security…
I can’t believe this is happening, I’ve always been so careful. I saw article guide to… pic.twitter.com/x56HR2z8xK
— Bill Lou (@BillLou95) January 2, 2024
That didn’t stop Crypto Twitter from degening.
Popular pseudonymous crypto trader Deeze took to Twitter to show he had claimed his airdrop, and fellow trader 0xQuit put out a thread featuring a brief security audit where the token contract was declared safe.
3/ On the SOL side, you’ll see something like this:
I will not pretend to be an expert on the SVM, but the transaction looks fairly straight forward. If you want to be safe, claim using a fresh Solana wallet. pic.twitter.com/CBJJzKme6E
— quit (👀,🦄) (@0xQuit) January 1, 2024
So what’s next for LFG? ‘Tis the season for airdrops, so more is on the way, Axelrod says. The first one was limited to Ethereum wallets that had spent more than $4,269 in gas during the last 12 months. The next one will target a wider audience—users only will have to have spent $1,000 in gas to be eligible. Additionally, LFG will be airdropping tokens to a few additional buckets including developers on Ethereum who have deployed a smart contract, users who have interacted with major Solana protocols, and people who put up liquidity for the LFG token.
Axelrod said the LFG project is now also focused on bringing Ethereum developers to Solana. “A big part of this [second] airdrop is going to be geared towards people who have deployed contracts on Ethereum,” he said.
The LFG dev added that Less Fn Gas also plans to use a portion of its treasury to start a decentralized grants program. Ethereum developers will be able to apply for grants, paid in LFG, to build on Solana.
It’s unclear if the project has legs, given how far it’s fallen from its peak already. But with so many prominent figures from the Solana ecosystem seemingly rooting for it, anything is possible.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
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