Curriculum·J305 Staking, Restaking, and Yield Architecture·about 32 min
Points programs
By the end of this lesson you can
- →State what a point is as an instrument, and what it is not
- →List the terms that remain undefined at the moment you commit capital
- →Identify the wrapper you must hold to earn points as the actual exposure
- →Recognize the crowded exit that the end of a program creates
Junior · enrolled learners
This lesson opens with The EIGEN airdrop, May 2024.
- What happened
- EigenLayer accumulated deposits for months against a points program, with no geographic restrictions on depositing or on earning points. Claims for the EIGEN token opened on 10 May 2024, covering about 6.05 percent of initial supply in the first phase of season one, roughly 113 million tokens. The response was heavily negative on three grounds. The token was non-transferable for a stated period of months, so recipients could not sell or move what they had claimed. The community allocation was smaller than expected. And the foundation barred claimants in several jurisdictions including the United States, Canada and China, enforcing this by blocking VPN access to the claims portal, despite having accepted deposits and awarded points to those same users throughout. A further 28 million EIGEN was allocated afterwards in response to the criticism.
- The decision point
- Capital was supplied under one set of conditions and the payout terms were written afterwards by the party receiving the capital. Every variable that determines what a point is worth, being the supply, the allocation, the transferability and whether you are eligible at all, was set after the commitment and could not be negotiated. A point is not a claim, a debt or a security. It is a number in somebody's database, and the exchange rate is defined by them, later.
What you will be able to answer
- →What is a point, as an instrument?
- →Which terms are undefined when you deposit?
- →What is the actual exposure in a points program?
- →Why is the end of a program dangerous?
Orientation and Year One are open: anyone can read them without an account. From Year Two onward the lessons are for enrolled learners, because progress through the later years only means anything if it is tracked against a record.
It is free. We do not sell the list and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Sources and review
- https://www.theblock.co/post/291657/eigenlayer-airdrop-faces-backlash-over-inability-to-move-tokens-and-blocked-jurisdictions
- https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/05/10/eigenlayer-opens-claims-for-airdrop-of-eigen-token-though-its-non-transferable
- https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2024/04/30/why-eigenlayers-airdrop-is-controversial
- https://cointelegraph.com/news/renzo-ezeth-depegs-688-airdrop
Confidence medium·Volatility high·Reviewed 2026-08-06·Owner unassigned
Contested
J308-03 owns the full expected value model for farming campaigns, including gas, capital opportunity cost, time at a real hourly rate and ordinary income tax at receipt, and J308-L builds it against a live campaign. This lesson covers what a point is as an instrument and how it interacts with the wrapper you must hold. Keep the split and do not duplicate the model here.
Naming this program is not a claim that its terms were improper. Restricting claims by jurisdiction is a common and often legally driven decision, and the foundation allocated further tokens in response to the criticism. The structural point is about the sequence: capital first, terms afterwards.