Massively Anticipated Airdrop on Solana Faces Community Backlash

Kamino Finance, a leading DeFi protocol on the Solana network, announced the KMNO token airdrop would take place in April, but the protocol revealed the snapshot date, set for March 31.

According to a post on X, Kamino Points Season 1 culminates in the genesis distribution of KMNO.

As stated by the protocol, 7% of the total KMNO supply (set at 10 billion) goes to the initial community distribution, which will be performed linearly based on the results of Season 1 of Kamino Points.

$KMNO

Kamino Points Season 1 snapshot will be taken on March 31st, and will culminate in the Genesis Distribution of $KMNO in April $KMNO Genesis is an important step in establishing the decentralized governance of Kamino Finance🧵 pic.twitter.com/m14UJLmihb

— Kamino (@KaminoFinance) March 7, 2024

KMNO will have several utility features, mainly being the governance token, allowing users to participate in various parts of the Kamino protocol.

However, the Kamino Foundation will oversee the initial governance process until it transitions to a fully decentralized protocol. Ultimately, users will have influence over Kamino’s incentive programs, revenue allocation, protocol operations, and more.

It’s worth noting that the team faced criticism from its community for announcing the snapshot date. Users complained that revealing the date —roughly 23 days in advance— only prompted airdrop hunters to deposit millions into the protocol, climb the leaderboard, and get the biggest rewards instead of early users.

Others said this move attracts “short-term mercenary capital” from whales who will eventually dump the token once they receive it.

Kamino Finance was one of the many Solana-based tokenless protocols that initially employed a points system to determine user engagement. Like many other DeFi protocols, Kamino users were incentivized to perform several activities, such as providing liquidity to earn yield, lending and borrowing, etc. Later, these protocols gauge which wallets participated the most, rewarding them with tokens in a potential airdrop.

Find out more about current and future Solana airdrops in our guide here and also in our dedicated video: