edgeX's airdrop: 85 brand-new wallets claimed 82% of the EDGE

01 · March 31One every two minutes

Early on March 31, a wallet claimed just over six million EDGE from the airdrop of edgeX, a crypto futures exchange. Its only earlier transfer on Ethereum was a small top-up of ETH, five days before. Three minutes later a second one like it claimed nearly nine million. More followed, mostly two minutes apart, for almost two hours. By half past five in the morning, 26 of them had claimed exactly 140 million tokens between them, a seventh of all the EDGE there is.

The same day, 59 more set up the same way claimed about 40 million more. Together they took 82% of everything claimed from the airdrop. We followed where their tokens went, and what everyone else got.

02 · The airdropPoints, then tokens

edgeX is a perpetual futures exchange, where users bet on crypto prices with borrowed money. Like many exchanges, it ran a points program, and at the end of March it turned the points into EDGE tokens on Ethereum. Eligible users claimed from a contract that opened on March 31. It was one of the biggest drops in our 2026 airdrop scorecard.

Over two hundred thousand claimers took part. The typical one got under three tokens, worth about a dollar and a half that day, and 84% got fewer than ten.

Big allocations are normal in a points program, since heavy traders earn more points. What stands out is who held the biggest claims.

03 · The walletsBrand new, topped up days before

All 85 were new to Ethereum. Before claiming, all but one had received exactly one transfer. It was a small amount of ETH for gas, sent in the ten days ahead by an exchange or a bridge such as OKX, Gate, Across or Relay.

The top-ups came in bursts. More than half landed on March 30, the day before the claim, most of them a minute or two apart, and the claims next morning kept the same rhythm. Points came from trading on edgeX itself, which the Ethereum record does not show, so these holders may well have traded there. On Ethereum, though, each one appeared only days beforehand. Most of the other big claimers, those with a hundred thousand tokens or more, had months of history.

04 · The lock140 million, locked as promised

After the claim, users complained that a small set of new wallets had taken a huge share, and reports counted more than 80 of them holding about 180 million tokens. edgeX responded that a 14% share had gone to early liquidity providers and partners under the same points rules as everyone else, and said it would lock 140 million for a year.

The chain backs that up for 26 of the wallets. About 13 hours after claiming, each moved its whole claim into its own lock contract, a standard vesting wallet that releases tokens on a set date. All 26 release on the last day of March next year, and none has released a token.

05 · The other 59Not locked, and moved in August

The rest were set up the same way and claimed on the same day. Their tokens, about 40 million, were never locked.

They sat still for five months. Then, over five days in late August, all 59 moved their full claims into 22 deposit addresses, the kind an exchange assigns to a customer. Each of those passed everything on to edgeX's exchange vault.

Up to seven of the wallets paid into the same deposit address. Several senders paying into one deposit address is the usual sign of one owner. The chain cannot say whether these were the same partners, or who they are. It does show that the lock covered 140 million of the 180 million these wallets claimed.

06 · Everyone elseA crowd with crumbs

Take those out and everyone else, over two hundred thousand claimers, shared about 40 million tokens. Farming was heavy too. We link claimers that were funded from the same source in one burst, or that send to the same exchange deposit address. More than half of all claimers sat in such groups, yet those groups took less than 1% of the tokens.

The farmers were many and small. The big allocations went elsewhere, to a small group holding about a hundred thousand to nearly nine million tokens each.

07 · The rest of the potWhat nobody claimed

edgeX's claim contract held about 292 million tokens. Three quarters of it left on the first day. By mid-April claims had slowed to a trickle, and on April 19 the last quarter moved into edgeX's own exchange vault. That one transfer was bigger than everything the other 218,000 claimers received.

Nothing has left the claim contract since. The token now trades about 40% below its first-week price.

We also corrected our own numbers along the way. Our scorecard had counted withdrawals from that exchange vault as airdrop claims. It now counts only the claim contract.

08 · The answerHow we checked, and what it means

We used Bitquery's archive of Ethereum token transfers up to September 29, 2026, with exchange and bridge addresses from our address labels and prices from our price data. A claim is a payout from edgeX's claim contract. For the biggest claimers we checked every transfer they received before claiming, and followed every token they moved after. Anyone can follow them with the Bitquery MCP.

So who got the edgeX airdrop? On paper, over two hundred thousand claimers. In tokens, mostly a small group of addresses that appeared days before the claim opened. edgeX locked the part it said it would. The other 40 million went onto its own exchange five months later. For everyone else, the airdrop was worth about a dollar and a half.

Anyone judging an airdrop can run the same two checks: when its biggest claimers first appeared, and who sent them their first ETH.

FAQ

How much EDGE did a typical edgeX airdrop claimer get?

Under three tokens, worth about a dollar and a half at the price on the day of the claim. Most claimers got fewer than ten.

Who got the most EDGE in the edgeX airdrop?

A small group of new addresses took 82% of all EDGE claimed, about 180 million tokens. All were new to Ethereum, and each got one ETH top-up in the ten days ahead of the claim.

Did edgeX lock the 140 million EDGE?

Yes, for 140 million tokens. The wallets that held them moved them into one-year vesting contracts on the day of the claim. The locks release at the end of next March, and nothing has been released yet.

What happened to the EDGE that was not locked?

Another group of new addresses, set up the same way, claimed about 40 million that was never locked. In late August they moved it through a set of deposit addresses into edgeX's exchange vault.