Eight days countdown to the second season of Grass Airdrop: Check out USDC reward details

Grass Airdrop Qualification Update: Why Pay USDC in Season 2 instead of $GRASS?

The network has confirmed that its second quarter rewards will be issued in the form of USDC rather than GRASS tokens, and the application window will open on July 22. For users who have been running nodes for many years, this change will directly affect the actual amount of revenue in their wallets, and not everyone is satisfied with it.

The following are details that are not mentioned in most reports: how the rewards are calculated and what arrangements will be made for the future in 2026.

What Happened to Grass Airdrop

The Foundation has confirmed the reward allocation rules for the second quarter, ending nearly two years of statistics on online participation. This airdrop covers the 1st to 19th eras (October 14, 2024 to June 8, 2026) and rewards users for contributing bandwidth during this period.

Unlike many Q2 short investment projects in the industry, the network chose to make payments in USDC rather than its native tokens. The foundation said the move is aimed at avoiding regulatory frictions and allowing users in more jurisdictions to apply in a timely manner. No new coins will be minted in this round, so the circulation supply will not be affected.

The total reward pool is approximately US$3 million, funded directly from network revenue rather than treasury reserves or new issues-a detail that is more critical than the apparent figure.

Why did the Grass Holder Meeting cause controversy

The Grass holders 'meeting on July 7 was intended to raise expectations before the application window, but instead triggered obvious dissatisfaction. Several long-term node operators have found that despite maintaining high online rates for many years, their personal USDC allocations are only a few dollars.

The calculation method explains why. Rewards are divided into two point systems-network points and online points. The payment rate of network points linked to actual bandwidth needs is much higher than that of the latter. In the second phase, just 150,000 users accounted for approximately 90% of total network traffic, meaning that the majority of the $3 million reward pool is concentrated in the hands of a small group of high-throughput contributors rather than evenly distributed.

For ordinary users, the news is like a sobering agent: casual participation only earns a meager reward, while high-quality residential nodes with high online rates and preferred equipment receive the largest share.

Key information for traders

The request date for the Season 2 airdrop for Grass is set for 1:00 pm (EST) on July 22, 2026, and the application window will be open for six months. Users must apply through a new unmanaged in-app wallet, which uses a passkey or email Captcha for security protection and has built-in MoonPay and Jupiter integration for fiat currency exchange. If users choose an in-app wallet, a small Turnkey wallet fee of $0.15 will be charged per transaction, as well as standard Solana network fees.

In terms of price trend, the current trading price of the project is approximately US$0.3566, which has dropped by about 10.8% in the past 24 hours. The market value is close to US$86.99 million, and the 24-hour trading volume is approximately US$19.2 million. Those who follow the price of Grass tokens today will find that the correction is mainly related to selling pressure related to airdrops rather than overall market fluctuations.

Outside of the second quarter, the Grass token economy showed early investors holding 25.2% of total supply, and the venture capital ownership plan will be fully unlocked in late October 2026-once unlocked is completed, long-standing potential pressures will be eliminated.

What to focus on next

The end date for the Grass Season 2 airdrop, that is, the application deadline is January 22, 2027; unclaimed rewards after that will be retained rather than reallocated. This provides eligible users with a clear six-month window of action.

In the longer term, approximately 170 million coins (approximately 17% of the total supply) are expected to enter circulation through a separate Q2 token allocation later in 2026, with specific eligibility criteria still to be announced. This incident, and future news of Grass's launch of more exchanges, could have a price impact far beyond current USDC allocations.

Also noteworthy: A newly passed governance vote allows pledgers to share the network's USDC revenue-reported annualized revenue from bandwidth and AI training data sales at US$33 million-a mechanism that will tie token value more closely to actual use.

Conclusion

The airdrop marks a shift towards income-support, regulatory compliance rewards rather than mere token issuance, but the unevenly distributed structure has disappointed some community members. As venture capital lockups end in October and larger token allocations are looming, the coming months will determine whether Grass can translate infrastructure growth into renewed trust and demand.