Pokémon-esque crypto and NFT game Pixelmon has announced airdrop details for its soon-to-be-launched MON token.

Over 180,000 wallets will be eligible for the airdrop on Monday, May 27 with the claim process starting at 9:30 a.m. UTC through the newly created Mon Protocol. MON will be minted as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum.

Those eligible include holders of selected Pixelmon game NFTs, players of Pixelmon hyper-casual game Kevin the Adventurer, participants in the PixelPals “Farm2Farm” competition, and buyers of the MON token presale. 

Pixelmon originally launched with clunky Minecraft-like artwork which led to the battle arena title being widely ridiculed online. Now two years, an ownership change, and a dramatic artwork overhaul later, the Pixelmon IP is birthing quarterly mini-game releases with larger-scale games further on the horizon.

This included Kevin the Adventurer, which was built around a heavily memed ogre-like creature from the Pixelmon universe, soon garnering 36,000 active players on Base. And then PixelPals was launched on the Mantle network, blending pet care and trading card elements. Both player bases are being rewarded during this airdrop.

One group that won’t be receiving their MON tokens during the token generation event are those who completed Mon Protocol airdrop missions. These players will get their tokens shortly after the event has finished, as originally planned.

Alongside the launch and airdrop of the MON token, a staking platform will also go live. Token stakers will accumulate points that can be spent in a launch pool, more details about this will be announced “soon” after the token launches, but the basic gist with most staking programs is that holders can earn rewards for locking them up within the game or platform.

LiquidX bought the Pixelmon IP from the original creators in 2022, setting out to expand the initially ridiculed brand of Pixelmon into trading cards, merchandise, and various media adaptations using the Mon Protocol to power this growth.

The MON token is designed to fuel what’s been described as an “IP protocol” to incentivize and reward NFT holders who help grow the Pixelmon brand as it expands with larger games in the future.

Edited by Andrew Hayward