As a crypto enthusiast and DApp dev, IMO this (and indeed most crypto projects especially ones that are really nothing more than ERC-20 or BRC-20 tokens) raises major red flags for me. IMO, it is sketchy moonboi shit.
If a hype-drenched crypto project is brand new and is already aggressively marketing itself with no discernible real world utility or reason for the disbursement of “governance tokens”, solely fixated on “number go up”, it is usually a scam/pump and dump.
Taking a look at the Initial Token Allocation for this project definitively allows me to make conclusions about the team’s honesty and trustworthiness.
So without further ado: check out the super sketchy token allocation (they try to break up different groups of insiders to try and hide the fact that most of the token goes to insiders and private investors…compare that to Ergo and it seems incredibly greedy in contrast): ITA
17% — StarkWare Investors
32.9% — Core Contributors: StarkWare and its employees and consultants, and Starknet software developer partners
50.1% granted by StarkWare to the Foundation, earmarked as follows:
9% — Community Provisions — for those who performed work for Starknet and powered or developed its underlying technology, e.g. via past use of the StarkEx L2 systems. Crucially, all Community Provisions will be based on verifiable work that was performed in the past. For example, to the extent Community Provisions will be given to past StarkEx users, allocations will be determined based on verifiable usage of StarkEx’s technology that took place prior to June 1, 2022.
9% — Community Rebates — rebates in Starknet Tokens to partially cover the costs of onboarding to Starknet from Ethereum. To prevent gamification, Community Rebates will only apply to transactions that occur after the rebate mechanism is announced.
12% — Grants for research and work done to develop, test, deploy and maintain the Starknet protocol
10% — a strategic reserve, to fund ecosystem activities that are aligned with the Foundation’s mission as explained in the previous post in this series.
2% — Donations to highly regarded institutions and organizations, such as universities, NGOs, etc, as decided by Starknet Token holders and the Foundation.
8.1% Unallocated — the Foundation’s unallocated treasury is in place to further support the Starknet community in a manner to be decided by the community.