ZKsync Airdrop Sparks Criticism Over Sybil Accounts

The token distribution of the L2 network ZKsync (ZK) has faced community criticism, as only 13% of the 6 million unique wallets were eligible, with many identified as ‘sybils’.

“The airdrop of 17.5% [of ZK’s issuance] to 695,232 addresses is the largest distribution of coins among users. The tokens have no vesting periods or lock-ups and are fully liquid on the first day. This amount exceeds the locked allocations for the Matter Labs team (16.1%) and its investors (17.2%),” stated the project’s blog.

Users will be able to claim the coins starting next week until January 3, 2025. The claim becomes available on June 24, and eligibility can be checked via the official checker.

However, some users complained about not being eligible for the airdrop. 

How tf am I not eligible? I’m in tears seriously.. been using only one wallet, checked out and used different protocols. Ah, just so dissapointing…

— ahrlien.eth (@ahrlien) June 11, 2024

“Why am I not eligible? I’m really crying… Used only one wallet, checked and used different protocols. It’s so disappointing,” wrote a community member.

To qualify for participation, users must meet certain criteria, including interacting with smart contracts and trading ERC-20 tokens in DeFi protocols.

According to Cinneamhain Ventures founder Adam Cochran, unlike regular users, airdrop hunters found it too easy to meet ZKsync’s drop criteria, as they could use scripts and bots to automate the process. 

I love the zkSync guys but damn that was not a well planned airdrop from a sybil perspective.

Those criteria are easy to not hit as a real user, and easy to hit as a farmer, and had no anti-sybil program.

Real users could easily use 1-2 dapps or only a handful of tokens on your… pic.twitter.com/PiqprIbKJ3

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) June 11, 2024

“Real users might only use a few decentralized applications or tokens on your network, as it is new and has few projects,” he wrote.

His view was echoed by Polygon’s Head of Security, Mudit Gupta, who noted that the ZK distribution was the easiest for sybil farm owners.

zkSync airdrop is out.

Most farmable and farmed airdrop ever probably.

Almost no sybil filtering as far as I can see.

Anyone who knew the criteria could’ve easily farmed the shit out of it.

Makes you appreciate what LayerZero is trying to do with sybil filtering.

— Mudit Gupta (@Mudit__Gupta) June 11, 2024

Analysts from Sybil Horror 6 estimate that farming wallets could collectively receive 135 million ZK.

135,000,000 ZK for all sybils from the initial LZ Sybils list.

I hope ZkSync fixes their eligibility list and disqualifies sybils from it.

And say thank you to LayerZero Lab and Brian for their sybil hunting initiative.https://t.co/RCEa6geO3c pic.twitter.com/rhIt3hjNDP

— Sybil Horror 6 (@SybilHorror6) June 11, 2024

Initially, the ZKsync team refrained from implementing sybil protection, as regular users were sometimes mistakenly flagged as bots due to filter settings. 

Some noted that developers had the opportunity to implement a security system, and information about ‘sybils’ was provided to them by the analytics firm Nansen.

What a cop-out from both parties @zksync and @nansen_ai .

Everyone knows you had this information at your fingertips and you expect people to believe you chose not to act on it because that was otherwise part of some proper procedure? Absolutely shameless. https://t.co/qCdWT75YHT

— Borrowed Thots (@To_the_moon2021) June 11, 2024

“To clarify some confusion regarding ZKsync in the spirit of transparency: we provided Matter Labs with data on certain wallet segments, such as whales and known scammers. However, we did not engage in anti-sybil activities or provide recommendations on the coin distribution itself,” explained Nansen.

Previously, LayerZero Labs CEO Brian Pellegrino announced a halt in accepting reports on ‘farming’ addresses for participation in the LayerZero protocol airdrop due to a surge in submissions. 

Before this, owners of over 100,000 sybil addresses voluntarily came forward as part of an initiative announced by the team.

In the near future, a token distribution for the L2 project Taiko is expected to occur alongside the mainnet launch.