#Seiscam is trending on twitter, community is mad, what's happening?

The buzzy blockchain project's SEI token saw a flurry of trading as it debuted on several crypto exchanges, but there was much confusion over the status of a promised token “airdrop” to early adopters of the network.

Sei, a new trading-focused blockchain backed by Jump Crypto and Multicoin Capital, went live Tuesday, setting off a flurry of trading for the projects just-launched SEI token and pushing its first-day market capitalization to more than $400 million.

Trading volume for SEI has topped $1.6 billion in the past 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap, with major crypto trading venues like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken all listing SEI in tandem with the networks debut.

However, posters on X (formerly Twitter) lobbed complaints about apparent delays in the tokens hotly-anticipated airdrop – a planned giveaway of tokens to early users and community members.

The team behind Sei initially said in a blog post that “the airdrop will open for claiming at Public Mainnet launch.” When the network launched on Tuesday, however, users were unable to claim tokens – fueling discontent and confusion among early Sei adopters eager to claim their share.

The status of the airdrop remained vague in the 24 hours following Sei's mainnet launch. In an X post on Wednesday – a day after the network's launch – Sei Labs clarified that “airdrop rewards will be claimable following an initial warmup period,” but it failed to provide a concrete timeline. It wasn't until later that day – after the SEI airdrop had already been dubbed a “fiasco” by some observers – that the airdrop claim process ultimately opened to users.

By then, the incident had already come to illustrate the messiness inherent to crypto airdrops: a popular, albeit problem-prone method for attracting network users.

Sei airdrop

Sei‘s mainnet deployment came alongside the official announcement for an “airdrop” of the SEI token, the asset that will be used for network fees and proof-of-stake security. Airdrops are a popular method for blockchains to attract users and bootstrap liquidity – rewarding some allotment of a network’s tokens to early adopters and network testers.

Although airdrops have become a mainstay of the blockchain-launch playbook, they're almost always marred by legal, operational, and technical snafus. The SEI airdrop was no exception.

After Sei Labs announced its official plans for a SEI airdrop – some users found issues claiming their allotment of tokens and reported trouble understanding the exact eligibility criteria. Users have also had difficulty accessing Sei's official Discord server – the messaging platform that community members use to interact and share updates. Sei's Discord appeared to go offline starting on Tuesday and CoinDesk was still unable to join it at press time.

“While the Sei Foundation is aware the community's frustration due to the misunderstanding about the connection between the mainnet launch and the Atlantic rewards and airdrop, we encourage the community to remain patient as we wait for the final ecosystem partners and globally distributed validators complete their work to ensure their decentralized applications function smoothly for the Sei community on mainnet beta launch,” the spokesperson said.