- KERNEL plunged 40% post-launch due to mass sell-offs from airdrop recipients.
- Trading volume hit $380M in 24 hours, with listings on major exchanges.
- 55% of KERNEL’s supply is allocated to community rewards and airdrops.
The new KERNEL cryptocurrency debuted on Binance and experienced a sharp decline of over 40% on its first day, registering heavy sell pressure soon after its launch.
When KernelDAO recently launched its token to the public through its token generation event (TGE), the token quickly became backed by the popular exchange Binance. However, the token faced an immediate wave of selling aggressively supported by the firm that operated the SAMO coin exchange. When Airdrop recipients came in to liquidate their holdings, the price dropped 44% to a intraday low of $0.262. This major drop slashed the token’s market capitalization to $48.6 million.
Even after the price downturn, the listing generated furious trading activity. The total trade volume for KERNEL amounted to as high as $380 million in 24 hours, and about 149.8 million tokens were circulating at the time.
KERNEL Goes Live Across Binance and Major Exchange Platforms
On April 14, KERNEL officially started trading on all platforms and pairs, such as KERNEL/USDT and KERNEL/BNB. Binance also increased KERNEL’s reach through its wider ecosystem services, such as Simple Earn, Buy Crypto, Convert, Margin, and Futures with up to 75x leverage.
Binance released the announcement naming KERNEL as the fourth project in its Megadrop platform, which ran for a week from April 9 to April 13. The airdrop was limited to users who deposited BNB in Simple Earn, then completed Web 3 quests and did not redeem their staked BNB bonus at any point during the deadline; they were eligible to take home a piece of the 40 million KERNEL tokens being distributed airdropped comprising 4% of the 1 billion token supply.
Kernel DAO’s tokenomics stated that 55% of the supply is customizable for community rewards and airdrops and a mere 5% for ecosystem growth and partnerships. Furthermore, 20% of the supply is set aside for private sales and team/advisor allocations, subsequently locked up for 6 months and vested over 24 months.
At launch, 162.3 million KERNEL tokens represented 16.23% of the total supply in circulation.
The token’s launch date was moved from February 2025 to April 14, while KernelDAO had initially planned to launch it in February 2025. KERNEL was officially listed with a coordinated listing across multiple top exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, Gate.io, CoinEx, and Bitvavo cryptocurrencies, which all launched simultaneous trading of KERNEL at the same time.
Token airdrops are not uncommon triggers for large-scale sell-offs in the crypto space. This is also a very recent example of what happened with Tutorial (TUT), whose value increased over 235% after listing on Binance on March 28, only to lose 50% of its value for a week as first buyers jumped out of their positions.
What is Kernel DAO?
Founded in 2023, Kernel DAO is a restocking protocol with over $2B in total value locked (TVL) and covers more than 10 blockchains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, etc.
This project features some core products: Kernel, a restocking infrastructure on BNB Chain; Kelp LRT, the leading liquid restacking platform on Ethereum; and Gain, a tokenized rewards platform that enables users to get high-yield returns and participate in airdrops.
KERNEL is a dual-purpose (governance and utility) token within the ecosystem. Restocking assets allows token holders to boost network security and receive further airdrop benefits. Moreover, Kernel DAO also uses part of its protocol revenue wallet to buy back KERNEL tokens from the markets.
Industry players have also significantly supported KernelDAO. Last year, the project successfully held a $10 million private round, partially sourced by the teams at Binance Labs (later renamed YZi Labs), SCB Limited, and Laser Digital. Alongside launching its restocking infrastructure on BNB Chain, the team also launched a $40 million ecosystem fund to help the ongoing development and expansion of its restocking infrastructure on the BNB Chain.
