Hey team, credit where it's due first: Ben's "On the Stabledrop" post owned the mistake directly, and the claim site shipped on the date given. I'm writing as someone who's been in Frontier since early, still providing 6 figures in LP, and referred 7 figures to Cap. I want this protocol to work, which is exactly why I want to lay this out properly here instead of doing it publicly on my X account.
First the context, in Cap's own words:
Jan 19/20: "All Frontier program participants will be rewarded in cUSD."
Jan 27: Homestead marketed with "If you missed qualifying for the Stabledrop, this is your next chance."
Jan 30 (Ben): "No $CAP airdrop - we're airdropping stablecoins to Frontier program users."
Feb 4: Total fixed at 12M cUSD with exact published rates: 0.000027772 cUSD per cap, 0.000021267 per COG. Everyone could compute their payout to the cent.
Feb 6: ICO delayed, and the drop reaffirmed the same day: "As planned as before, the stabledrop will occur after the ICO."
Discord (Weso): "The stabledrop is happening regardless of the ico results," and on funding: "Cap has also done previous raises."
Apr 15: "fully committed to delivering it."
Jul 10: Cut to $4.2M, eligibility rewritten to YT-at-loss only. cUSD holders and Pendle LPs: 0.
This is wrong (not just disappointing, wrong!!!) on so many levels:
1. It's retroactive. Feb 4 put a dollar price on every point. People sized, locked, and held capital for 5 months on those numbers, and that TVL was shown to Aave, Binance, Bybit, and institutional partners. Rewriting eligibility after the capital did its job is unacceptable.
2. "No-loss" only holds if LPs and holders don't exist. We earned 0 to 1.4% while carrying contract risk, mint fees, and IL, when 5-15% was available elsewhere with the same (or lower) risks. That spread over 5 months was the price we paid for points you had priced in dollars. We did lose.
3. The funding ceiling is self-imposed. Your own team confirmed in Discord MULTIPLE TIMES that the drop was independent of ICO results (❗️) and that the ICO wasn't the only funding source. You also chose to halve the sale from 10% to 5% of supply, and the protocol earns real fees.
4. The conflict of interest needs data, not assurances. Many have published on-chain findings linking the single largest YT buyer, 0x23d0...450F (19M YTs bought Dec 21-28, right before the January teasers), to infrastructure around the founder's previous project: the megaben.eth mint later moved to the wallet that minted caplabs.eth, 6.1M QI received from a team Safe, admin control of a QiDao vault and of an Aerodrome pool it deployed. "It belongs to an old colleague" doesn't rebut any specific finding. And the fact that this wallet is in the ONLY eligible category is more than just a 'coincidence'.
What would actually rebuild trust:
a) Escrow the 0x23d allocation pending verification by an independent third party, and publish the outcome either way.
b) Honor the Feb 4 published rates for all Frontier participants, or propose real compensation (a CAP allocation, fee share, anything substantial) for LPs and cUSD holders.
c) Put Homestead's reward terms and secured funding in even more explicit writing before it ends Jul 23, so nobody gets caught by "market conditions" twice.
TLDR:
- The Stabledrop was promised to ALL Frontier participants, in writing, repeatedly (Jan 19, Jan 30, Feb 4, Feb 6, Apr 15, Jun 15), and confirmed in Discord as independent of ICO results
- Feb 4 fixed it at 12M cUSD with exact per-point values; Jul 10 cut it to $4.2M and zeroed out LPs and cUSD holders retroactively
- "No-loss" ignores real LP/holder losses: months at 0-1.4% plus fees and risk
- The $4.2M cap is a choice: the team halved the sale itself, did prior raises, and earns fees
- The largest beneficiary of the new rules is a wallet researchers link on-chain to the founder's prior project
- Asks: escrow and verify 0x23d, compensate LPs/holders per the published rates, lock Homestead terms before Jul 23