edgeX Airdrop "Anti-Grab" Controversy: A Carefully Designed Harvest Scheme?

March 2026, the cryptocurrency market faces another heavy blow to trust. The decentralized perpetual contract trading protocol edgeX, incubated by Amber Group and strategically invested in by Circle Ventures, officially launched its Token Generation Event (TGE) amid widespread anticipation. However, what should have been a community celebration of airdrops quickly turned into a trust collapse event where everyone was "anti-grabbed."

From "Having Points Means Having Tokens" to "Same Points, Different Rights"

Before the airdrop, edgeX was shining brightly. Since August 2025, its trading volume entered a rapid growth phase, with over 470,000 user addresses, a total trading volume exceeding $87.7 billion, TVL once surpassing $36 million, and over $180 million in trading fee income earned from transactions. The project team had solemnly promised the community: No witch-hunting, as long as you have points, you get tokens. This gave countless "grab-and-earn" enthusiasts great confidence.

However, once the airdrop query page was officially launched, the community exploded.

Many users discovered that even with the same amount of points, the airdropped tokens varied greatly. Some users could exchange 1 point for 4 tokens, others only 0.5, and some addresses could exchange up to 11. In response to doubts, the project team merely replied vaguely that "points from different sources indeed have different weights," but they never disclosed the specific calculation rules.

What was even more disheartening was the huge gap in expected returns. Even at the highest standard, each point was worth only about $5.50, whereas last year, edgeX points traded on the secondary market at prices as high as $30-40. This meant that many buyers who purchased points on the secondary market ended up losing everything.

"Market Manipulation" Confirmed: 80 Addresses Dividing 180 Million Tokens

If "same points, different rights" was just an opaque rule, then the on-chain data exposed the project team's malicious manipulation.

According to tracking by multiple users and on-chain investigators, there are numerous highly suspicious "market-making" addresses involved in the edgeX airdrop. These addresses exhibit highly consistent behavior patterns: all are newly created EOAs within 4 to 10 days, lacking historical transaction records, with gas fees mainly sourced from hot wallets of exchanges like Gate.io, OKX, Binance—highly consistent with team fund dispatch methods.

Data shows that over 80 interconnected new wallets collectively received a huge amount of airdropped tokens, totaling about 180 million EDGE tokens. These "market-making" addresses have a per-point value exceeding $100, while ordinary users generally have less than $2. One early user reported that with only 940 points, they received less than 300 tokens, equating to about 0.2 tokens per point, worth roughly $1.30.

Suspicion of Data Falsification: Questionable Trading Volume and Emerging Market Maker Links

As controversy grew, more doubts about the authenticity of edgeX data surfaced. KOL "Feng Wuxiang" pointed out that a Perp DEX with only about $200 million in TVL could sustain over $1 billion in open interest and an average leverage of over 5x. Such a structure is significantly different from similar products.

Even more suspicious is its performance during extreme market conditions. High-leverage Perp DEXs typically face almost unavoidable chain liquidations during sharp volatility, but edgeX hardly experienced any liquidations in similar scenarios. Meanwhile, its social media activity and actual trading volume show a stark contrast—daily trading volume has long remained above $5 billion, second only to Hyperliquid, yet discussion activity is completely mismatched.

On-chain detective ZachXBT also found on-chain links between edgeX and MEXC's market-making addresses, and speculated connections to previous attacks on Hyperliquid involving Jelly Jelly and Zerebro. MEXC's official blog continues to promote edgeX and has launched pre-market trading, indicating a relationship that has long exceeded normal cooperation.

Suppressing Speech: Closing Comments, Deleting Posts, Removing People

In response to overwhelming community doubts, the edgeX project team’s approach has been a textbook example of "crisis PR failure."

After the airdrop controversy erupted, the team immediately shut down the comment section on their X account to suppress negative comments. Similar actions were taken in Telegram and Discord groups: enabling 15-minute slow modes, strengthening group entry verification; for users openly questioning, admins quickly deleted posts, muted, or even kicked them out. Some users reported being immediately removed from the group just for sharing chat logs with the official.

Well-known KOL "Bingwa" posted on X criticizing harshly: "Why are there same points with different rights, arbitrary rule changes? Why delete posts, kick people, suppress discussion? Because a project that was always designed from the start to rely on fake trading to inflate data, hype valuation with stories, and coordinate with market-making groups behind the scenes to transfer profits, fundamentally cannot respect users or the community." He also stated that the worst part of edgeX is that it was never meant to be a real project, but "a setup."

Industry Shockwaves: DeFi Trust Crisis Deepens

The edgeX incident is not isolated. Just weeks earlier, BackPack's "anti-grab" was equally shocking. A series of black swan events related to airdrops are profoundly changing the ecosystem logic of DeFi.

The most direct impact is on user behavior. Within days after the edgeX snapshot ended, the number of new deposit users per day plummeted from over 2,000 to below 50. Broader data shows that in Q1 2026, DEX trading activity continued to decline, with overall trading volume dropping to its lowest in nearly a year. The proportion of DEX trading volume compared to centralized exchanges fell from over 21% in summer 2025 to 14.1%.

Market analysts point out that many DeFi protocols that haven't issued tokens rely heavily on airdrop expectations for trading volume and user activity. Once the project completes token issuance and "crosses the river," this false prosperity will quickly collapse. As "anti-grab" becomes a common industry consensus, the myth of getting rich through grab-and-earn may be coming to an end.

Conclusion: Who Is Paying for the "Setup"?

Reviewing the entire chain of the edgeX incident—from the black box operation of point weights, to the precise ambush of market-making addresses, to the ruthless suppression of dissent—it’s hard not to suspect this was a premeditated "harvest scheme" from the start.

For ordinary users, this is undoubtedly a harsh lesson in risk: when project teams control the interpretation of rules, data validation, and public opinion, the promises of "decentralization" can be torn apart at any time. For the entire industry, when trust—the most fundamental cornerstone—begins to weaken, what will be the future of DeFi?

Perhaps, as Bingwa said, behaviors that attempt to manipulate and harvest to destroy the industry ultimately harm not only the "grab-and-earn" crowd but everyone who believes in the ideals of decentralized finance.