Two Years of Idling for Just $5? $Grass Phase 2 Rewards Switched to USDC, 170 Million Token Airdrop No Follow-Up
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Two Years of Idling for Just $5? $Grass Phase 2 Rewards Switched to USDC, 170 Million Token Airdrop No Follow-Up
However, the gameplay of airdrops has already been disenchanted.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Kuli, TechFlow
Remember Grass, the one where you contribute bandwidth to earn rewards?
Grass Foundation officially launched the Stage 2 Rewards Checker (Rewards Checker) on July 1. Users can view their USDC reward amounts corresponding to bandwidth contributions made between October 14, 2024, and June 8, 2026 (Stage 2 Epoch 1-19) via the Dashboard.
The claim channel will open at 1 PM (EST) on July 22, and rewards will be distributed directly to users' self-custodied in-app wallets.
This distribution differs from the previous Stage 1 GRASS token airdrop; Grass chose to reward in the stablecoin USDC.
The team's previous official stance was that the project was close to profitability by the end of last year. This move aims to directly compensate contributors from the network's real revenue rather than continuing to rely on token incentives, marking a significant step in Grass's transition from "subsidy-driven growth" to a "self-sustaining economy."
However, after the checker went live, the comment sections of related posts on the X platform were quickly flooded with user feedback. Many participants who had run nodes for a long time shared screenshots of their allocations, expressing disappointment that the rewards were far below expectations, with some voices even questioning the project's fairness.
Background Review
Grass is a DePIN project that focuses on allowing users to participate in network construction and earn rewards by sharing idle internet bandwidth. Users only need to download the Grass app or run a node, running it in the background to contribute unused bandwidth while accumulating Grass Points and Network Points. These points will become an important basis for subsequent reward distributions.
From 2024 to 2025, Grass completed the Stage 1 token airdrop, distributing approximately 100 million GRASS tokens to millions of users globally, becoming one of the largest airdrops in Solana ecosystem history. Afterwards, the project entered Stage 2, continuing to expand the network scale and optimize the points model (including introducing Network Points to more accurately reflect real bandwidth usage).
Expectation Was 170 Million Tokens, Not Even the Word GRASS in the Announcement
To understand this discrepancy, we must start from the first phase.
On October 28, 2024, Grass completed the first phase airdrop, distributing 100 million GRASS tokens to approximately 2.8 million users, accounting for 10% of the total supply. According to Grass's official website, based on the average price in the first month after the token launched, this batch of airdrops was worth about $200 million, roughly equivalent to $70 per person. At the time, some users complained about the small allocation, but overall, this was one of the most widespread airdrops in the Solana ecosystem.
The expectation for the second phase was built on the public token allocation plan. According to the Grass tokenomics document compiled by Stakin and Gate Research, 17% of the total supply (i.e., 170 million tokens) was allocated for Phase 2 distribution and subsequent ecosystem incentives, 70% higher than Phase 1. In late June this year, market consensus was still that the native wallet launching in mid-July would be the only entry point to claim these 170 million tokens, and tracking reports from platforms like CoinMarketCap were written based on this stance.
The announcement on July 1 rewrote the script. The entire text did not mention the GRASS token at all. The official explanation given was that, considering ongoing regulatory uncertainty, to ensure users in all eligible jurisdictions could claim in time, Phase 2 participant rewards would be distributed in USDC. As for whether the distribution of 170 million tokens was canceled, postponed, or arranged differently, the announcement provided no follow-up.
600 Days of Running, Earned $2: Sharing Results Turned into a Large-Scale Complaint Session
Some users shared screenshots showing 599 days online, accumulating about 2.82 million points, with a final query result of $5.73 USDC; other users claimed running nodes for two years only got them $10, while some posted screenshots of earning $80 over 495 days, posting with a mocking tone.
Some users also questioned the points statistics themselves, claiming the points they mined did not match what the checker displayed, differing by nearly half.
"uninstall Grass" became a high-frequency term in the comment section, with some users posting uninstallation tutorials. This scene was not the first time. During the Phase 1 airdrop in September 2024, BeInCrypto reported that some users compared the tokens earned from 7 months of running to "a Big Mac." The difference is that Phase 1 dissatisfaction targeted the token quantity, this time there aren't even tokens.
A technical explanation for the huge difference in amounts lies in the points model.
Starting from October 2025, Grass split points into two categories: Uptime Points only reflect online duration, Network Points are only accumulated when bandwidth is used by real traffic, and the routing of real traffic highly depends on the geographical location of the node. Some community members analyzed on the X platform that this is the main reason why the same running duration results in rewards differing by an order of magnitude. Most users were running for "duration," while Grass this time is paying for "bandwidth that was used."
For participants still waiting on the sidelines, only one thing is certain at the operational level: claiming opens on July 22 and ends on January 22, 2027, operated only through the official Dashboard. Grass will not initiate direct messages, and any third-party claim links are phishing.
While the controversy fermented, the secondary market gave an opposite reaction.
According to Bybit data, as of July 2, GRASS was quoted at about $0.48, up about 4% in 24 hours, with a daily fluctuation range of $0.461 to $0.517, and trading volume of about $36 million. The token's all-time high was $3.89, and it is currently still about 87% lower than the peak.
The price logic is not hard to reconstruct. 170 million tokens account for 17% of the total supply, close to 27% of the current circulating supply of about 630 million. Previously, the market always viewed this as the biggest selling pressure hanging over the second half of the year. An unlock of 33.4 million tokens (about $16.3 million) on June 28 had already made token holders nervous once. Changing the Phase 2 rewards to USDC means this batch of potential selling pressure has at least temporarily not landed; airdrop farmers cannot get tokens, so there are no tokens to dump. The interests of token holders and running users have moved in two directions in this announcement.
According to existing arrangements, Grass will hold a conference call for all token holders and network participants on July 7, where users can submit questions in advance. Judging from the current controversy, the official team needs to respond to at least three points: First, what is the actual size of the Phase 2 reward pool; Second, whether the distribution of 170 million tokens will still be executed and when; Third, and what users are most concerned about, why the points statistics caliber does not match some users' local records.
After the claim channel opens on July 22, actual arrival data will provide a more complete sample for this controversy. Before then, regardless of whether to continue running, the points in users' hands have already been priced, and the remaining decision is only whether to claim or not.
However, judging from the current sentiment, the crypto bear market has directly ended the airdrop rewards for most projects. Token prices may return, but the airdrop gameplay has already been disenchanted.
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