For a sense of scale: at a price of around four cents, 32.69 million S come to roughly 1.19 million euros. Spread across everyone who is eligible, that is often a three-figure sum for the individual holder, sometimes more. So it is worth a quick look, even if the position had long been forgotten.
Until now the matter has shown up here only as a line in the weekly round-up, most recently in the most profitable crypto airdrops of the week. Other distributions that are still running, and their deadlines, are collected in the airdrop overview.
fNFT: the locked position the S tokens are released from
An fNFT is a non-divisible token that represents a locked balance and can only be converted into the actual coin once a lock-up period has expired. That is exactly the form the Sonic airdrop takes: eligible users did not receive the S tokens themselves, but a position they have to unlock.
This is the most common reason why people assume they received nothing. Instead of an S balance, the wallet shows only an inconspicuous entry that looks like nothing without the claim portal. Anyone who took part in Season 1 or Season 2 back then should therefore query their address directly in the project’s portal. The token balance in the wallet says nothing about it.
How to tell whether this concerns you
Eligible addresses are the ones that collected points in the two seasons at the time. There is no qualifying after the fact, and no way to buy an entitlement either. Anyone who used several addresses goes through each one separately: the allocation is attached to the address, not to a person or an account.
Season 1 claimable without a penalty since April 18, Season 2 since May 24
The schedule ran in two stages, and both seasons went through it independently. In the first stage a claim was possible, but it cost a penalty on the portion that was still locked. In the second stage the lock-up has run out completely, and the remaining allocation can be claimed without any deduction.
- Season 1: until April 18, 2026 a claim came with a penalty, since April 18, 2026 in full and without a penalty.
- Season 2: until May 24, 2026 a claim came with a penalty, since May 24, 2026 in full and without a penalty.
As things stand today, that means anyone claiming now hands back nothing. The penalty that put so many people off has not been an issue for months. Anyone who deliberately waited back then waited correctly, but now has to see the decision through.
October 15, 2026 closes both claim windows at the same time
Although the two seasons were unlocked at different points in time, they end on the same day. The project names October 15, 2026 as the date without specifying a time of day. Betting on the last day therefore carries an avoidable risk: an hour of uncertainty is enough to lose a position that would have taken a few minutes to claim.
In practice that argues for a buffer of a few days. Network trouble, a forgotten recovery phrase or a hardware wallet that is not to hand right now quickly cost more time than expected.
After the cut-off date any address can trigger the burn in the contract
A burn is the permanent removal of tokens from circulation, usually by a transfer to an address nobody can access. At Sonic this step is built into the contract, and the project describes it explicitly as open: once the date is reached, the burn of the remaining locked amount can be triggered by anyone.
This design is the reason there will be no leniency. There is nobody who could grant an exception, because the process hangs on a condition in the code and not on a decision. A request to support will not change anything after the cut-off date either.
Claiming through the portal and the gas fee on Sonic
The claim runs through the project’s airdrop portal at my.soniclabs.com/airdrop. The wallet is connected, the position you are entitled to appears, and the claim is confirmed as an ordinary transaction on the Sonic network. A gas fee is the charge a network levies for executing a transaction; it is payable in the network’s own currency and is low on Sonic, but not zero.
From that follows a small detail that is regularly overlooked: a wallet that holds nothing except the locked position cannot pay for the transaction. A small balance of the network currency is needed on the same address before the claim can even start.
The usual stumbling blocks
- The address used to take part back then is a different one from the address in use today.
- The balance for the gas fee is missing on precisely that address.
- The recovery phrase of an old wallet can no longer be found. In that case the position is lost regardless of the deadline.
- Fake claim pages are going round for every well-known deadline. The portal address belongs typed in by hand, never taken from a direct message or a search advert.
- A page that asks for the recovery phrase is a fraud attempt in every case. A genuine claim asks only for a signature in the wallet.
Anyone who wants to hold the claimed tokens for longer is better off not keeping them in the hot wallet the portal was connected to. Which devices are suitable for that and how they differ is set out in the hardware wallet comparison.
Selling instead of claiming: the fNFT order book on PaintSwap
There is a second route, and the project names it itself: the locked positions are tradable. An order book on PaintSwap at airdrop.paintswap.io lets fNFT positions be sold to other participants instead of being claimed.
For the vast majority of holders this is now the worse route. As long as a penalty was looming, selling below value had a logic to it. Since both seasons are fully unlocked, a direct claim delivers the whole amount, while selling the position requires a buyer, a price and a spread. The route remains interesting mainly for holders who, for tax or practical reasons, do not want to come into contact with the tokens at all.
Anyone who wants to sell the claimed S afterwards needs a trading venue that lists the token. Whether a provider is authorised in the EU can be looked up in the company database of BaFin, the German financial supervisor; which venues are an option for European investors in the first place is set out in our crypto exchange comparison.
Tax in Germany: the finance ministry letter separates allocation and consideration
The letter of March 6, 2025 from the German Federal Ministry of Finance deals with airdrops explicitly and distinguishes two cases. If someone is allocated crypto assets without doing anything for them, then on this reading of the administration there is no taxable income at the moment of allocation. If, on the other hand, the recipient has to provide something, such as supplying data or carrying out an action on social networks, other income under section 22 number 3 of the German Income Tax Act comes into consideration.
The letter also records that an element of chance can override the link between the service and the consideration, and that crypto assets are to be recognised at the market price at the time of acquisition. If no market price can be established at that moment, a valuation of zero euros is also possible.
For the Sonic airdrop that means the classification depends on what exactly was required in the two seasons, and that is a question of the individual case. Anyone claiming a larger position settles it with the tax office or a tax adviser rather than relying on a blanket answer. Tools that document inflows and disposals automatically are set side by side in our comparison of crypto tax tools.
Holding period, the exemption limit and the open point on the acquisition date
The holding period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act is one year for crypto assets held privately; once it has run out a disposal gain remains tax-free, before that it counts as a private disposal transaction, for which an exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year has applied since 2024. If that limit is exceeded, the whole gain is taxable and not just the part above it.
The delicate point in this case is when the period starts. Whether it runs from the original allocation of the locked position or only from the claim of the S tokens cannot be answered across the board and depends on how the individual case is set up. So anyone planning to sell soon after claiming should put exactly that question first, because it decides whether the gain is taxable. What belongs in the records in any case is the date of the claim, the amount claimed and the price on that day.
1.19 million euros against a 158 million market capitalisation: no supply pressure
For context, because the matter is easily mistaken for a price story: the 32.69 million S amount to just under 0.9 percent of the circulating supply and to about four percent of what is traded on a single day. Measured against a market capitalisation of around 158 million US dollars, that is a small figure.
On top of that comes the direction: a burn reduces supply, it does not increase it. Reading looming selling pressure into the date gets the matter the wrong way round. Nor does it work as a price driver, for which the amount is too small. The value of this date lies solely with the people affected, and there it is concrete.
For the price itself, the same applies as to every smaller token: a total loss is possible, and the swings are considerably larger than with the big names. Claiming an allocation is no reason to keep it, and just as little a reason to sell it immediately.
After the claim: self-custody and the trading venue
With the claim, a locked position turns into ordinary tokens on your own address. That shifts the task from the deadline to custody. Anyone holding larger amounts is well advised to separate the wallet used to connect to portals from the wallet the holdings sit in.
MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto assets, which has applied in stages since 2024 and requires providers to hold an authorisation and to meet uniform obligations. For a sale that means, in practical terms: before tokens move to a trading venue, it is worth looking at whether the provider is authorised in the EU and how it holds customer balances.
Sonic airdrop: The key points for your decision
The date is irreversible, the effort is small, and the penalty that used to argue against claiming no longer exists. Anyone with an entitlement from Season 1 or Season 2 should settle the matter in the next few days rather than in the final week.
- Go through the addresses and claim. Query each address separately in the portal, keep a small balance ready for the gas fee and complete the claim before October 15. For custody afterwards, the hardware wallet comparison helps.
- Document the transaction. Record the date, the amount and the price on the day of the claim, and settle the open question on when the holding period begins before you sell. Tools for that are in the comparison of tax tools.
- Only then decide about selling. The trading venue should list the token and be authorised in the EU; an overview is offered by the exchange comparison.
(As of October 5, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)
