Ethereum Wallet Pursuing Plan of ‘Progressive Decentralization’

Rumors of a token from MetaMask, ConsenSys’ popular Ethereum wallet, have long circulated in the crypto community. Now the token appears to be a reality though a potential airdrop remains unknown.

On March 16, Joe Lubin, ConsenSys co-founder, told Decrypt that MetaMask will pursue “progressive decentralization” and intends to issue a token moving forward. Lubin comments came the day after ConsenSys closed a $450M Series D, bringing its overall valuation to a whopping $7B.

Under the plan,MetaMask will launch a DAO, although Lubin said that it “won’t govern MetaMask, but will enable the creation of novel pieces of MetaMask to be funded.” The comments suggest that MetaMask users who expect to receive an airdrop may be disappointed, although an airdrop was not explicitly ruled out.

Lubin’s comments follow similar remarks that Jacobc.eth, MetaMask’s lead of operations, gave to Decrypt during the ETHDenver conference in early March.

“We believe really deeply in progressive decentralization and doing it over time in ways that are meaningful — and doing it in ways that are not a cash grab,” he said. Jacobc added that MetaMask will be cautious not to place the project “in jeopardy of… regulators or give governance to ‘airdrop farms’.”

Token Incentives

“It’s important that this wallet be owned by all of us,” he continued, emphasizing that the token will become “an important aspect” of MetaMasks plans for community ownership.

Now attention will turn to a potential airdrop. In September 2020, the leading DEX Uniswap became the first protocol to issue a surprise airdrop of governance tokens to its past users following pressure from rival projects using token incentives to attract liquidity away from Uniswap.

Many leading DeFi protocols and infrastructure projects have since taken the same approach, including dYdX, 1inch, and Ethereum Name Service.