On April 17th, Merlin Chain announced the launch of the Merlin’s Seal airdrop query page. It is reported that 20% of MERL tokens will be distributed to users who pledge Merlin’s Seal. Considering the total supply of MERL tokens is 2.1 billion, the amount of tokens distributed in this airdrop is about 420 million. Although the MERL token has not been officially released, multiple off-exchange platforms have already launched trading pairs for MERL. On April 18th, the price of MERL was approximately 1.74, based on this price calculation. The scale of this airdrop is approximately 730 million US dollars.
Overall, the income from staking and airdrops on Merlin is not optimistic. PANews has analyzed the results of several major staking assets. If the initial asset value staked was 1 BTC, only BTC, ETH, USDT, and ORDI showed positive overall returns, while the other assets showed negative returns. Among them, BTC had a comprehensive annualized return rate of 82.25%, surpassing the highest spot return during this period. The returns of other assets were lower than holding spot positions at their highs.
According to the current user feedback, the exchange rate between points and tokens is approximately 68:1. With a total airdrop quantity of 4.2 tokens, PANews calculated a total of approximately 28.5 billion points.
Based on this point calculation, if we consider the off-exchange token price of $1.74, the price of each point is approximately $0.025.
So how much profit can be obtained from staking on Merlin Chain? According to the above calculation method, 1 BTC can be exchanged for approximately 146 MERL tokens per day, with a daily profit of approximately $255. If the user started staking on February 8th and continued until April 14th, the staking income for 66 days would be approximately $16,876.
If you did not participate in Merlin’s staking activity, would you earn more? On February 8th, the closing price of BTC was $45,288, and it rose to a high of $73,777 during the period until April 14th. If User A is a skilled trader and chooses to hold only BTC during this period and sell at the highest point, User A’s maximum spot return would be $28,488, with a maximum return rate of 62.9%.
User B, assuming they are a loyal user on Merlin Chain and staked 1 BTC from the first day of staking until April 14th (the actual withdrawal can only be made after the BTC halving), would have earned the BTC holding return plus the Merlin airdrop return. The combined profit would be approximately $37,249, with a maximum return rate of 82.25%.
Comparatively, if the price of MERL tokens can maintain the current trading price after being listed, staking on MERL may avoid certain risks of a market downturn. However, the overall difference is not significant. If the official opening price of MERL drops below $0.83, the combined return of MERL airdrop and holding returns would be lower than selling BTC at its highest point.
Did staking get cut off by the market? Due to the calculation of Merlin’s points based on BTC valuation (10,000 points per BTC per day), with the recent volatility of the market, many staked assets other than BTC have been affected by the BTC exchange rate, resulting in a dual impact of lower spot prices and reduced point quantity.
For users who staked RATS assets, staking on Merlin may have missed the best selling opportunity. During the staking period on Merlin, the highest return rate for simply holding RATS was 169%. However, if users chose to stake on Merlin and receive airdrops, the overall return rate was -10.67%.
For example, when staking initially, User A chose to stake BTC, while User B chose to stake RATS. Both assets were worth 1 BTC, assuming an initial investment of $45,288.
For User A, the number of points earned per day remains the same, at 10,000 points.
For User B, due to the fluctuating exchange rate between RATS and BTC, which showed an overall downward trend from February 8th to April 14th, the RATS to BTC exchange rate decreased by 56.79%. This means that User B’s daily points would be less than 10,000 points. By linearly estimating this decrease, the overall points earned by User B staking RATS would be 220,000 points less than User A staking BTC, which is equivalent to approximately 2,754 MERL tokens.
Considering that the price of RATS decreased by approximately 37.4% from February 8th to April 14th, even with an additional 26.6% return rate from staking, the overall return rate during this period would be -10.6%.
However, the calculations above are only for the staking and airdrop rewards on Merlin, without taking into account the rewards from other projects in the Merlin ecosystem. If combined with airdrop rewards from other projects, the overall returns would be better.
The total supply of MERL tokens is 2.1 billion and will be released linearly over 4 years. In this round of airdrops, 20% of the tokens will be released with 50% in the first month and the remaining 50% gradually unlocked over 6 months. Based on the current off-exchange price of $1.74, the fully diluted market value is approximately $3.654 billion.
According to the official announcement, MERL tokens will start trading on OKX, Hashkey Global, Bitget, and other exchanges on April 19th at 10:00 UTC.
According to the official data, 91% of this airdrop originated from the Bitcoin community (including $1.75 billion worth of BTC and $980 million worth of BRC-20 assets). From this perspective, most users still choose to stake BTC on Merlin, which is currently the best option for participating in Merlin’s airdrops.
Overall, for users who hope to profit from airdrops, the previous large-scale airdrop StarkNet has experienced a continuous decline, dropping by 85% from its peak. When staking with real money to exchange for airdrops, one must also consider the changes in market conditions and learn more sophisticated strategies. Airdrop participation is no longer a simple way to make money.
(Disclaimer: This article represents the author’s personal views and opinions and does not represent the views and positions of PANews. All content and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and trades, and the author and PANews will not be responsible for any direct or indirect losses incurred by investors.)
(Disclaimer: This article is only for providing market information. All content and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. They do not represent the views and positions of PANews. Investors should make their own decisions and trades, and the author and PANews will not be responsible for any direct or indirect losses incurred by investors.)
Tags:
MERL
Merlin Chain
Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin
Airdrop
Staking
