Unexpected changes in the tokenomics of the DED meme coin airdrop on Polkadot have sparked sharp criticism within the community. The distribution volume was reduced to 5% from the initially promised 100% of the issuance.
Polkadot ⭕️
I wasn’t going to comment on this because emotions are running high on social platforms, but I want to share my thoughts.
Like everyone else, I’m disappointed with how the DED situation unfolded. The treasury spent money, and many people recently bought and held… pic.twitter.com/vWaQMyYu04
— Orlando (@OrlandoG85) March 23, 2024
During a conference on X Spaces, developers explained that the tokens were retained for the project’s further development. Initial support came from the Polkadot treasury.
“Once you distribute 100%, you run out of ammunition. […] Since voters did not want to fund, it makes more sense to distribute a smaller volume and use the remaining tokens to fund the project,” explained one of the DED initiators, Giotto De Filippi.
The token airdrop began on March 23. Users received 36 DED for each DOT coin they held at the time of the snapshot (March 18, 2024). However, the community immediately questioned why it was not the initially expected 1000 DED per DOT.
WHY 36DED
You say its will be 1000 by 1 DOT
WTF— Philipp Levin is $DED .fuel ?? ⚡⛽️ (@PhilippLevin3) March 23, 2024
An investor under the pseudonym Orlando acknowledged that emotions regarding the airdrop were “running high” on social media.
“Like everyone else, I’m disappointed with how the DED situation unfolded. The treasury spent money, and many people recently bought and held DOT, driven by the hype around this experimental meme coin. I hope the team finds ways to compensate holders for these mistakes in the long term,” he stated.
Orlando urged not to accuse the project’s authors, led by De Filippi, of a scam. In his view, the team sincerely tried to leverage the meme token boom to promote the Polkadot ecosystem.
User BlockPalid disagreed, noting that DED developers not only unexpectedly changed the tokenomics but also misled the community by claiming the presence of pre-investors in the asset. In reality, funding came from the treasury.
“Corruption at the highest level,” declared BlockPalid.
According to Dune, 91.5% of the airdrop had been distributed at the time of writing. Owners of 1.305 million accounts claimed their coins—1.383 million addresses were eligible according to the snapshot.
DED tokens will remain frozen until they are listed on exchanges to avoid seller pressure.
According to CoinGecko, the market capitalization of the meme coin segment has exceeded $59 billion. In the last 24 hours, the figure increased by 6.4%, while the entire crypto market grew by 2.4%.
In 2024, Polkadot attracted only 1.1% of global investor interest in blockchain ecosystems. The leading Solana had over 49%, according to a CoinGecko study.