Stellar Development Foundation and Keybase Jointly Launch $120M Airdrop

The Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit founded to support the development of the open-source Stellar network, is launching a $120 million airdrop in collaboration with encrypted messenger Keybase.

According to a Sept. 9 blog post, Keybase will be giving 100 million Stellar (XLM) each month over the next 20 months to their users, which totals to 2 billion XLM, or almost $120 million. Keybase will distribute XLM among its more than 300,000 users.

*Certain conditions may apply

The foundation states that eligible participants in the airdrop must have had a Keybase account before today’s announcement or, if they are new to the messenger, must connect the Keybase account to a Github or HackerNews account that was registered before Sept. 9. 

The airdrop will run for a minimum of three months, after which the Stellar Development Foundation will determine whether the program is a success and should continue.

Stellar — which is a payment technology built on the Ripple protocol —  is the 12th largest digital currency by market capitalization. At press time, XLM is trading at $0.06, having lost 0.65% over the past 24 hours, according to data from Coin360.

Stellar and blockchain development

Earlier in September, American asset management firm Franklin Templeton Investments filed a preliminary prospectus with American regulators for a government money market fund with a focus on blockchain-based shares on the Stellar Network.

In July, the Stellar Foundation, Ethereum Foundation and Fidelity began supporting a new blockchain accelerator program called Startup Studio. The project aims to provide workshops to blockchain startups to help them enhance product design, law and engineering, smart contract development and hiring — among other areas.