9 Catalysts and Airdrop Opportunities to Watch This Week

Original Title: 9 catalysts to watch this week

Original Author: The DeFi Investor

Original Translation: 深潮 TechFlow

Welcome to the second issue of the "Monday Alpha" series, which will include:

• 9 major crypto events to watch this week

• 2 airdrop opportunities

9 Major Crypto Events to Watch This Week

1. Eigenlayer Token Launch - $EIGEN will launch on May 10, but unfortunately, it will not be transferable at launch. The team has stated that EIGEN will be unlockable after new features are released, which are expected to be available by September 30, 2024.

Screenshot of Eigen Foundation Announcement

2. NVIDIA Earnings Report - Although this is not an event for this week, I am sharing this information now so that everyone has time to prepare. NVIDIA's Q1 FY2024 earnings report will be released on May 22. If the report exceeds expectations, it could positively impact the prices of some AI tokens, as has happened in the past.

3. **Jito may announce a new SOL *staking* protocol at 6 PM UTC on May 6** - Given the tremendous success of Eigenlayer, I believe building a restaking protocol for SOL is a very good idea. The CEO of Jito will participate in an X Space with the co-founders of Solana Labs and Drift, where topics such as restaking will be discussed.

4. Velodrome's Superchain Expansion - Velodrome will begin its Superchain expansion this week. Velodrome is the most popular DEX native to Optimism. Through this expansion, Velodrome will be deployed on some of the most popular L2s built using the Optimism Stack, including Mode, Fraxtal, and Zora.

5. Aptos Token Unlock - $APT worth $103 million will unlock on May 12. Most of it will go to the team and early investors.

6. Pendle and Ethena Deployment on Solana - According to a tweet from an Ethena team member, Ethena and Pendle Finance may launch on Solana this month.

7. Ethena Integrates USDe Stablecoin on Top CEXs - This week, this rapidly growing stablecoin protocol will announce a major integration regarding USDe. Given that Binance, OKX, or Bybit have invested in Ethena, these three exchanges may integrate USDe.

8. Mode Token Launch - Mode, one of the fastest-growing Ethereum L2s, will launch its token $MODE on May 7. 5.5% of its supply will be allocated to the first community airdrop.

9. Sei V2 Mainnet Launch Date Announcement - Given that the audit of Sei V2 has just been completed, its launch date may be announced soon. Sei V2 is a significant network upgrade that will transform Sei into a fully parallelized EVM blockchain capable of supporting 28,000 transactions per second.

Airdrop Opportunities This Week

**1. *Stake* SOL on Sanctum (on Solana)**

Sanctum is an ecosystem for liquid staking on Solana. The protocol has launched a pioneering loyalty rewards program that gamifies rewards for users. By holding certain SOL liquid staking tokens, you can collect pets, which may qualify you for future airdrops.

I started using some of my SOL holdings for airdrops last week. Sanctum has some major backers, including Solana Ventures and Jump Capital.

Here’s the link: https://sanc.tm/w?ref=N9P221

2. Deposit USDe Stablecoin on Karak

I believe that depositing USDe on Karak is currently one of the best airdrop opportunities for stablecoins. Karak is the biggest competitor to Eigenlayer, and USDe is Ethena's stablecoin.

Both projects have launched a points program, and due to their recent collaboration, you can now earn points on both Ethena and Karak simultaneously.

Strategy:

• Use another stablecoin to purchase USDe on Ethena

• Deposit USDe on Karak