Forward the Original Title‘空投热潮与女巫清扫：区块链生态的新挑战与机遇’

Why do projects conduct airdrops?

There are multiple reasons why blockchain project parties choose to conduct airdrops. These reasons lay the foundation for the core position of airdrops in the blockchain ecosystem:

• Increase awareness and user engagement: Through airdrops, projects can quickly attract a large number of users, expand community size, and enhance the market influence of the project.
• Decentralize token holdings: Through airdrops, project parties can distribute tokens to more users, avoiding excessive concentration of tokens in the hands of a few large holders, thereby improving the decentralization of the project.
• Test networks and applications: Through airdrops, project parties can encourage users to conduct tests, thereby discovering and fixing potential problems, and improving product quality and user experience.
• Incentivize early supporters: Through airdrops, project parties can reward early supporters and improve user loyalty and engagement.

Challenges faced by airdrops

As the airdrop mechanism becomes more widespread, project teams are also facing increasing challenges and potential risks:

• Sybil Attack: Attackers create a large number of fake identities to abuse airdrop rewards, resulting in rewards that were originally intended for genuine users being divided among numerous fake accounts.
• Bot Voting: Automated tools and scripts (bots) may be used to vote and receive airdrops, thereby undermining fairness.
• Exploitation of Oversight Mechanisms: Malicious users may exploit loopholes in airdrops to attack or manipulate the project, harming its healthy development.

LayerZero’s Witch Hunt Campaign

LayerZero’s witch hunt campaign has become a highly watched case in the realm of airdrop challenges. They have implemented a series of measures to combat witch attacks and safeguard the fairness of airdrops.

On May 4, 2024, LayerZero Labs launched the “Self-Report Sybil Activity” program. If witch addresses self-reported relevant addresses on a designated page, they could receive 15% of the expected allocation without having to answer any questions. The deadline was May 17, 2024, at 19:59:59.

After the self-reporting deadline, the cleanup campaign was divided into two phases. In Phase 1, the official released a list of all identified witch users, among whom those identified but not self-reported would not receive airdrop allocation. In Phase 2, the official opened up a bounty, allowing users to submit detailed reports of witch activities. A successful report would result in the witch user not receiving airdrop allocation, and the bounty hunter would receive 10% of the expected allocation of the witch address.

Through these measures, LayerZero successfully flagged and screened a large number of potential witch addresses, improving the fairness of airdrops.

As of June 4, 2024, Bryan Pellegrino tweeted that witch reports were being reviewed and that users could submit objections. While being included in the reporting list would amplify the risk of the relevant address being considered a witch, it did not mean that the address would necessarily be judged as such. The final list of witch addresses was not yet out, the current reports could be false positives, and there would be a final screening. The final list of witch addresses would be released before the end of June.

Subsequently, on June 8, 2024, Bryan Pellegrino tweeted again that Nansen had confirmed 60,995 addresses as witch address clusters:

And some screenshots of other Studio Witch addresses:

The highly anticipated ZKSync airdrop

Following LayerZero, ZKSync, a Layer 2 solution based on zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Rollup) scaling technology, has recently attracted considerable attention, especially for its recently launched airdrop program. The ZKSync Association will distribute a one-time airdrop of 3.6 billion ZK tokens to early users and adopters next week, with 695,232 eligible wallets. The snapshot time was March 24, 2024, and community members can check their airdrop eligibility on the website https://claim.zknation.io/ and can claim the airdrop from next week until January 3, 2025.

This airdrop represents 17.5% of the total supply of ZK tokens. Users will be able to start claiming their tokens from June 24, 2024, with the claim period ending on January 3, 2025.

Users eligible for ZKSync airdrop

The eligibility and criteria for the ZKSync airdrop are very strict to ensure that only real users and contributors are rewarded:

• Users (89%): ZKSync active users who have transacted on ZKSync and met the activity threshold.
• Contributors (11%): Individuals, developers, researchers, communities, and companies who have contributed to the ZKSync ecosystem and protocol through development, promotion, or education.

Eligibility is based on the ZKSync Era and ZKSync Lite activity snapshots taken on March 24, 2024, at 00:00 UTC.

ZKSync airdrop allocation method

ZKSync distributes airdrops based on users’ trading activity and holdings on ZKSync Era and ZKSync Lite:

• Eligibility Assessment: Each address applying for the airdrop must have at least one point to indicate their activity on ZKSync.
• Allocation Calculation: The airdrop allocation is calculated based on the user’s asset holdings on ZKSync Era (including assets in wallets and DeFi) and the holding time of these assets. The maximum airdrop per single address is 100,000 ZK.
• Multiplier Rewards: Users can also earn allocation multipliers by holding ZKSync native NFTs, participating in DeFi projects, and other activities to reflect their contributions to the ZKSync ecosystem.

Witch detection

This airdrop particularly emphasizes witch detection to ensure that real users are rewarded. ZKSync uses on-chain data analysis and behavior pattern recognition to eliminate witch addresses, ensuring the fairness and effectiveness of the distribution.

Interestingly, it did not launch a large-scale witch hunt, which has also been widely criticized. Among the 690,000 addresses that received airdrops, not only were the airdrop rules vague, but there were even multiple witch addresses that had already been investigated. According to witch hunter Artemis, some rats (inside trading) managed to obtain more than 2 million ZK tokens by depositing the same Ethereum funds on the same day, and almost all of the accounts were flagged on LayerZero’s witch list.

The future of airdrop mechanism

The unspoken rules of airdrops that have long been formed between sheep herders and project parties seem to have caused misunderstandings between the two. Many users believe that airdrops are their “labor income” that they deserve. In the bear market, users actively work hard, contribute transaction fees to provide income, and help projects create the illusion of on-chain prosperity, and they should be “rewarded.” However, these users have strong intentions, and project parties may not fully buy it.

The original intention of the project party is not to fight against the community, but only to be more cautious in distributing airdrops after tens of thousands of studios have joined the “wool-pulling” army.

The airdrop plans of LayerZero and ZKSync showcase innovative governance measures taken by blockchain projects in the face of challenges such as witch attacks. These cases provide valuable experience for future airdrop design.

In the current cryptocurrency ecosystem, various airdrop plans still face huge challenges and opportunities. We hope that more blockchain projects can learn from these successful experiences and design fairer, more transparent, and safer airdrop mechanisms to contribute to the healthy development of the entire ecosystem. Whether it is the project team or ordinary users, they should adopt a cautious and innovative attitude in this wave of new technology changes and jointly embrace the infinite possibilities in this sea of stars.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [PANews]. Forward the Original Title‘空投热潮与女巫清扫：区块链生态的新挑战与机遇’. All copyrights belong to the original author [ZAN Team]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
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