Cross-Chain Bridge Stargate’s Volume Soars as Airdrop Hunters Set Sights on LayerZero Token

Blockchain

Volume on the Stargate cross-chain bridge has surged by 30% in the past 24-hours as investors attempt to meet the criteria for a rumored LayerZero airdrop.

Data from DefiLlama shows that activity on Stargate (STG) has also seen a significant uptick over the past five weeks, with the protocol announcing that it surpassed $1 billion in monthly volume for the first time earlier this month. Stargate is a gateway to LayerZero and is responsible for the majority of capital flowing into the protocol.

Trading volume for STG has also jumped by 95% in the past 24-hours. At the time of writing, the token was trading at 78 cents, having risen 2% on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap.

Whilst LayerZero hasn’t announced that it will release a token, the protocol’s code on Gitbook mentions “ZRO token holder,” suggesting that a native token is set to be issued.

LayerZero is an omnichain protocol that communicates with various blockchains, it facilitates the transfer assets and arbitrary data across different blockchains. Earlier this month, the firm raised $120 million at a $3 billion valuation with investment from Andreessen Horowitz, Samsung Next and Sequoia Capital.

This caught the attention of crypto traders as a number of high-profile airdrops in the past 12 months yielded significant returns for a minimal amount of effort. Optimism (OP), Aptos (APT), Arbitrum (ARB) and Blur (BLUR) all issued lucrative airdrops that rewarded early adopters.

As well as interacting with the Stargate bridge, airdrop hunters are hopping on Stargate governance proposals in hopes of receiving a larger allocation of LayerZero. More than 6.4 million STG tokens were staked for a recent proposal on whether to make decentralized exchange Velodrome an STG hub on the Optimism blockchain.

LayerZero did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.