ZkSync community responds to controversial airdrop situation

zkSync, a prominent Ethereum scaling solution, is set to distribute 3.6 billion ZK tokens to users in the upcoming week. However, the crypto community has raised concerns about the fairness of the distribution list.

After a year of anticipation, zkSync, a zero-knowledge (ZK) layer-2 network, has confirmed an airdrop for active on-chain participants. Following a snapshot taken in March, more than 695,000 users are expected to receive 17.5% of ZK’s total token supply of 21 billion.

The project has also allocated two-thirds of its token supply to the community, with around 33.3% of all ZK tokens designated for team members and investors over a four-year lock period.

Criticism from the community has arisen regarding zkSync’s allocations to Sybil wallets. Despite offering the largest airdrop among major rollups to date, users have expressed dissatisfaction with the eligibility data of the protocol. The project released a CSV file containing all eligible wallet addresses on GitHub, revealing that Sybil accounts, controlled by a single entity with multiple accounts, have accumulated a significant number of tokens. This has led to some single-account users being deemed ineligible for the airdrop, sparking further scrutiny within the community.

One user, who goes by the name “Artemis the Sybil Hunter,” has claimed that Sybil accounts could potentially receive up to two million ZK tokens from the airdrop. In contrast, several of these addresses have been disqualified from LayerZero’s distribution, as the protocol has initiated a campaign against Sybil clusters.

Mudit Gupta, the CISO of Polygon Labs, criticized zkSync for its lack of Sybil filtering, stating that anyone familiar with the criteria could have easily taken advantage of the situation. This has prompted a response from the broader DeFi community, with many expressing their concerns about the latest airdrop debacle.

Despite data provider Nansen clarifying that they did not provide “anti-Sybil” support to zkSync’s parent company, Matter Labs, the project still reserves the right to determine who receives the airdrop. This leaves room for potential changes to the eligibility criteria in the near future.

This year’s airdrops have been met with controversy, as users who have dedicated significant time to engaging with protocols have sometimes been left disappointed by distribution plans and tokenomics. As reported by crypto.news, Starknet experienced a decline in user activity following its token announcement, a trend not uncommon during crypto airdrops. However, users have been particularly frustrated with the allocation process.

In response to these issues, Coinbase has proposed a new blockchain adoption metric to address distortions related to airdrops.