Eclipse was one of the most farmed networks of 2024 and early 2025. People tapped through a stress-test game, bridged ETH, posted on X for Kaito scores, and waited for a token. That token, ES, arrived in July 2025. Since then the story has turned much darker: staff cuts, leadership changes, a collapse in on-chain activity and a delisting from a major Korean exchange. If you are still reading “Eclipse airdrop” guides written before the claim, they no longer describe reality. This piece explains what Eclipse is, how the ES distribution worked, where the network stands at the time of writing, and what, if anything, is still worth doing on it.
What Eclipse is
Eclipse is an Ethereum Layer 2 that runs the Solana Virtual Machine instead of the EVM. The pitch was “Solana on Ethereum”: Solana-style parallel execution and low fees, with settlement on Ethereum. The design is modular. Ethereum handles settlement and the canonical bridge, Celestia was chosen for data availability, and RISC Zero was used for zero-knowledge fraud proofs. Gas is paid in ETH, not in a native token, which matters for anyone budgeting a test transaction.
Because it runs the SVM, Eclipse does not work with MetaMask out of the box. Users connect with Solana-style wallets that added Eclipse support, such as Backpack, Nightly and Salmon. Mainnet opened to the public in November 2024 after a period limited to developers. The official site is eclipse.xyz and the technical documentation is at docs.eclipse.xyz.
How the ES airdrop actually worked
The Eclipse Foundation set aside 100 million ES, 10% of the fixed 1 billion supply, for the first community distribution. Eligibility was drawn from three pools of activity:
- On-chain use. The biggest single driver was Turbo Tap, a browser game in which every tap was a real transaction on Eclipse. It doubled as a network stress test and generated enormous transaction counts. Bridging assets and using ecosystem apps also counted.
- Social activity on X. Contributions were measured through Kaito’s attention-tracking tools rather than by manual review.
- Discord. Community roles and engagement in the official server formed a separate bucket.
The claim portal opened on July 16, 2025 and closed on August 15, 2025. Eligible users could claim on Eclipse, Ethereum or Solana. One detail that drew attention at the time: Eclipse Labs said every staff member had signed an agreement barring them from claiming and had submitted all of their wallets, including test wallets, for exclusion. That was meant to answer criticism of insider farming that had hit other launches.
Unclaimed allocations were not extended. If you missed the window, there is no official late-claim route, and any page offering one should be treated as a scam.
Where Eclipse stands now
The months after the token launch were difficult, and it is worth being specific rather than vague:
- Restructuring. In late August 2025 Eclipse Labs cut roughly 65% of its staff and announced a shift from pure infrastructure toward building consumer applications in-house.
- Leadership. Founder Neel Somani had already stepped back from the CEO role in 2024 after misconduct allegations. Later reports say he left his remaining board role in 2025 to focus on machine learning research. Reported dates for that final departure vary between sources.
- Activity. Data aggregators reported that DeFi TVL on Eclipse had fallen by about 95% by early January 2026, to a few million dollars.
- Exchange status. Bithumb placed ES on its trading-warning list and announced in June 2026 that it would end trading support. The Foundation published revised tokenomics during that warning period.
- Unlocks. Token trackers list a large unlock for early supporters and investors from July 2026 onward, which adds supply to a thin market.
At the time of writing, Eclipse has not announced a second ES airdrop, a points season or any new on-chain reward program. The chain still runs, and the docs are online, but the activity that made it attractive to farmers has largely gone.
Is there anything left to farm?
Honestly, very little that is documented. Projects sometimes run a second distribution to revive usage, and a consumer-app pivot could come with its own incentive scheme, but there is no official signal of that. Spending money on bridge fees and gas to generate activity for a reward that does not exist is not a strategy.
The more defensible reasons to use Eclipse today are practical: testing an SVM app that only lives there, moving ES you already hold, or exploring the architecture as a developer. If one of those applies, the steps below keep costs and exposure small.
Using Eclipse safely, step by step
- Pick a supported wallet. Install Backpack, Nightly or another wallet that lists Eclipse support in its own documentation. Create a separate account for Eclipse rather than reusing a wallet that holds most of your funds.
- Find the bridge from the docs. Navigate to the canonical bridge through docs.eclipse.xyz or the “Bridge” link on eclipse.xyz. Do not search for “Eclipse bridge” and click an ad.
- Bridge a small amount of ETH. Gas is paid in ETH. A test amount is enough to confirm the route works. Withdrawals back to Ethereum through a rollup bridge can take much longer than deposits; read the current withdrawal timing in the docs before you deposit.
- Check that an app is still alive. With TVL down sharply, some ecosystem dapps have thin liquidity or have stopped updating. Look for recent commits, recent posts and real liquidity before depositing.
- Keep a simple record. Note the bridge transaction on Ethereum and the matching arrival on Eclipse. If a withdrawal gets stuck, those two hashes are what support will ask for.
Risks that are specific to Eclipse
- Liquidity risk. With activity down so far, you may find it hard to exit a position in an Eclipse-native token at a fair price. Slippage on small pools can be severe.
- Bridge and withdrawal risk. Getting funds back to Ethereum depends on the canonical bridge and its proving process. A smaller team maintaining that stack is a real consideration.
- Exchange access. The Bithumb delisting means fewer places to trade ES. Check whether your own exchange still supports deposits on the network you plan to use before you send anything.
- Wallet compatibility. Because Eclipse is SVM-based, sending ES or ETH to an EVM address, or to the wrong network inside a multi-chain wallet, is an easy and sometimes unrecoverable mistake.
- Token supply. Scheduled unlocks for investors and contributors continue through 2026 and beyond, according to public unlock trackers.
Recognising fake Eclipse claim pages
Dormant projects with a known token are prime targets for “second airdrop” scams, because people assume they missed something. Watch for these patterns:
- Official links come from eclipse.xyz and its subdomains, and from the Foundation’s X account, @EclipseFND. Lookalike domains such as “eclipse-claim”, “eclipsefnd-airdrop” or “eclipse.xyz” with an added word are not official.
- The July 2025 claim closed on August 15, 2025. A page offering a “late claim”, “season 2 claim” or “unclaimed ES recovery” has no official basis unless the Foundation announces one first.
- Eclipse uses SVM wallets, so a fake page that asks you to “connect MetaMask to claim ES” is an immediate red flag.
- Airdropped tokens with names like “ES Reward” or “Claim ES” appearing unprompted in your wallet are bait. Do not visit the link in the token metadata.
- Nobody from the Eclipse team will DM you first in Discord or on X to help with a claim.
FAQ
Is there an Eclipse airdrop in 2026?
No new distribution has been announced. The ES airdrop took place in July and August 2025. Anything presented as a 2026 claim needs to be traced back to eclipse.xyz or @EclipseFND before you interact with it.
I missed the 2025 claim. Can I still get my ES?
Not through any official route that we found. The claim window had a fixed end date and was not extended.
Which wallet should I use for Eclipse?
A Solana-style wallet that supports Eclipse, such as Backpack or Nightly. Check the wallet’s own documentation, because support can change.
Do I need ES to pay gas?
No. Gas on Eclipse is paid in ETH.
Verdict
Eclipse is still technically interesting: an SVM rollup that settles on Ethereum is not something many teams have attempted. As a reward opportunity, though, it is effectively finished unless the Foundation launches something new. The useful posture in 2026 is defensive: protect any ES you hold, ignore “late claim” offers, and only bridge in if you have a concrete reason to use an app on the network. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell ES.
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