Author: @Web3 Mario (https://x.com/web3_mario)
The hot topic of last week was undoubtedly the public airdrop verification event of ZKsync. I was originally studying and writing about the experience of DApp development on TON, but upon seeing this controversial event and the widespread community discussion it sparked, I felt compelled to share my thoughts through this article. In summary, ZKSync’s airdrop solution adopts a property-based distribution method that focuses more on rewarding developers, core contributors, and native Degen whales of ZKSync, creating a situation where native Degen whales are laughing while the furrow studios are crying.
Focus of Community Debate: Interaction vs. Asset Size
For a long time, the Web3 industry has seemed to establish a paradigm of using airdrops to attract users to use products, thereby achieving project bootstrapping. This is especially evident in the Layer 2 race, where by guiding developers and users towards the expected airdrop, stimulating developers to actively build and maintain DApps, and encouraging users to bridge funds to the target Layer 2 early on and actively participate in DApps running on the target Layer 2, creating an active ecosystem. This has become a standard practice.
Therefore, in the past, users generally expected ZKSync’s airdrop to be in line with its two direct competitors, Arbitrum and Optimism. However, despite logical considerations from the perspectives of industry influence, VC background, and fundraising scale, the results were drastically different. This led to many users who interacted heavily with ZKSync not receiving the expected amount of rewards, leading to a widespread debate within the community.
To explore the reasons behind this debate and discuss some implications for the future, it is necessary to review the airdrop rules of Arbitrum and Optimism. First, looking back at Arbitrum’s airdrop activity, it dates back to March 2023, where it allocated 11.62% of the total supply of Arb to Aribitrum users and 1.13% of Arb to DAOs operating in the Arbitrum ecosystem. The airdrop activity was based on snapshot data from February 6, 2023, and specific rules for users included:
– Cross-chain to Arbitrum.
– Different transaction periods.
– Transaction frequency and interactions.
– Transaction value.
– Providing liquidity.
– Arbitrum Nova activity.
Each rule had a specific scoring method, with a maximum score of 15 points used to determine the amount of Arb a user could receive. The calculation method was approximately linear, with rewards starting from 3 points and capping at 10,200 Arb. As for DAO rewards, the amounts were determined directly based on activity assessment, with 137 DAOs ultimately receiving airdrops, with Treasure and GMX receiving the most at 8 million Arb each. This was indeed a substantial gain.
Moving on to Optimism, unlike Arbitrum, the airdrop was conducted in multiple rounds, totaling 19% of the total supply, with the first round dating back to June 2022. Specific rules for each round included dividing users based on transaction counts, gas fees, governance participation, and NFT creators. These rules emphasized transaction frequency as a crucial factor for potentially higher rewards. However, ZKSync seemed to have abandoned this unspoken rule as its airdrop design focused more on the amount of assets held by individual accounts and the willingness to allocate risk assets. Therefore, when the results were announced, many users who heavily interacted with ZKSync based on past experiences were disappointed with the rewards, leading to the outbreak of controversy.
Furthermore, numerous airdrop hunters and KOLs can be found in the community who focus on teaching people how to easily obtain airdrops from projects. These individuals often have a wide fan base and strong influence, using social media to pressure ZKSync officialdom, hoping to change the situation. However, the official stance seems firm, showing no signs of rule changes due to pressure, hence the current situation. The accusations and defenses raised during the debate process regarding potential malicious behavior are the highlights of this public relations battle.
In conclusion, the demands from both sides of the debate seem understandable, and the right or wrong can only be determined from which perspective one argues. However, it is worth considering who the core value users are during the Web3 project bootstrapping phase and which users should be incentivized during this phase.
Interaction Leading to Sybil Attacks, Property Proof Leading to Monopoly Issues
Rewarding early participants through airdrops has proven to be an effective means of bootstrapping Web3 projects. A well-designed airdrop mechanism can efficiently attract seed users in the early stages of a project, stimulating users to engage in key protocol behaviors and educating them to increase product stickiness. For a long time, most Web3 projects have focused on incentivizing interaction behaviors, which has led to a downside of lowering the threshold to receive rewards and making the activity vulnerable to Sybil attacks. Interaction behaviors are easily automated and batched, providing space for professional teams to operate in bulk. When a large number of robot accounts flood in, although it may create a brief false prosperity for the protocol, these “users” usually do not contribute to the project’s future development, and most will cash out their rewards to increase fund turnover and boost profits. This incentive mechanism dilutes the rewards for those truly valuable users, making it not worth the effort.
So why does this mechanism work well in the early stages? This is mainly because there were not as many professional teams back then, and most users had not yet formed a habitual mindset towards this incentive mechanism. Interaction behaviors were more genuine, belonging to real users, making it easier to efficiently distribute rewards to these users. The wealth effect generated also helped the project achieve the aforementioned benefits. However, with the subsequent impact of the profit-making effect, this approach is no longer effective in attracting real users. In my opinion, the utility of airdrop activities focusing on interaction as the main incentive had reached its peak by the time of the Arbitrum airdrop.
This is why ZKSync chose to abandon the use of interaction counts as the basis for identifying valuable users and instead focus on asset size. However, this property proof method may also have its drawbacks. While it can effectively identify and eliminate the risk of Sybil attacks, it can lead to wealth distribution inequalities caused by monopolies.
We know that a core value of Web3 projects is the bottom-up distributed autonomous model. This means that support from grassroots users (real users with small asset sizes) is the foundation for a project’s development. It is the presence of grassroots users that allows some whale users to enter and form a more sustainable development form. After all, financial advantages are still present in most scenarios. Only when there are enough grassroots users can whale users earn significant profits. Therefore, the distribution system of property proof may result in early profits for whale users in the cold bootstrapping phase, making it difficult to effectively incentivize grassroots users and thus failing to form a cohesive community.
Ultimately, for Web3 projects, it is essential to carefully consider the value user profile for their product when designing cold bootstrapping mechanisms. Depending on the current environment, designing corresponding mechanisms that effectively incentivize these value users while avoiding Sybil attacks is crucial. Therefore, how to design your cold bootstrapping mechanism is a valuable topic, and I welcome everyone to discuss and brainstorm interesting solutions in my X.