ZKsync’s highly anticipated airdrop distribution plan has been finalized. The ZKsync Association will distribute a one-time airdrop of 3.6 billion ZK tokens to early users and adopters of ZKsync next week, with 695,232 eligible wallets. The snapshot was taken on March 24th, and community members can check their eligibility for the airdrop on the Claim.zknation.io website and claim it starting next week until January 3, 2025.
This airdrop accounts for 17.5% of the total supply of ZK tokens. Users will be able to claim their tokens starting next week until January 3, 2025, with contributors able to claim from June 24th. Who is eligible for the ZKsync airdrop?
Two types of ZKsync users are eligible for a total of 17.5% of the airdrop:
1. Users (89%): ZKsync users who have conducted transactions and met activity thresholds on ZKsync.
2. Contributors (11%): Individuals, developers, researchers, community, and companies (unrelated to activity on ZKsync) who have contributed to the ZKsync ecosystem and protocol through development, promotion, or education.
The eligibility and distribution of the airdrop are based on the ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite activity snapshot taken on March 24, 2024, at 00:00 UTC to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the ZKsync Era mainnet launch. How is the ZKsync airdrop distributed?
Eligibility: ZKsync has reviewed each address that has conducted transactions on ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite according to eligibility criteria to identify genuine users who have spent time exploring ZKsync. Each address must have at least one point to be eligible for the airdrop.
Distribution: After determining the eligibility of wallets, the airdrop distribution is calculated based on the encrypted assets that have been bridged to ZKsync Era. The formula adjusts the distribution of addresses based on the assets in ZKsync Era (both in wallets and DeFi) and the duration of these assets in the ZKsync era. The more points obtained, the larger the final distribution amount, with a maximum airdrop limit of 100,000 ZK tokens per address.
Multiplier: Each address can receive a multiplier based on activities that indicate genuine human behavior or high likelihood of contributing to ZKsync. These multipliers apply to eligibility and distribution for ZKsync Era and Lite. These activities include owning ZKsync native NFTs, supporting the ZKsync ecosystem by holding ZKsync native ERC20 tokens, experimenting with native account abstractions in the ZKsync Era using smart contract wallets, receiving and holding airdrops from other ETH communities, and transacting with mainstream ETH mainnet smart contracts to explore new use cases and DApps.
Addresses that meet the eligibility, distribution, and maturity criteria outlined above are granted token allocations. A single address must meet the minimum requirement of 450 ZK, with a maximum airdrop limit of 100,000 ZK tokens. Tokens for addresses with less than 450 ZK will be recycled back into the pool.
Witch Detection: The airdrop aims to reward “real users,” with the majority of witch addresses already eliminated through eligibility and distribution criteria. Each wallet undergoes additional witch detection steps. ZKsync states that there are over 6 million unique addresses on ZKsync Era, with the ZK airdrop focusing on using human-centric methods to identify genuine users. The on-chain history of wallets reveals a lot about the habits of their owners. Genuine individuals are often willing to take risks, especially those who feel they are part of the community. They spend time on-chain, ape in, trade, experiment with new protocols, and hold speculative assets. Assets connected by real users will ultimately flow into DApps and DeFi protocols, becoming the lifeblood of a highly liquid ecosystem. Users should be rewarded proportionately based on their impact on the success of ZKsync.
In the contributor airdrop, over half (5.8%) of the distribution includes treasuries of native ZKsync projects based on ZKsync Era, including DeFi protocols, ZK chains, NFT collections, decentralized markets, infrastructure, games, and more. The remaining contributor airdrop allocation goes to contributors, companies, and individuals who laid the foundation for ZKsync:
1. Contributors to the Ethereum development organization, including client execution, consensus clients, developer tools, RPC, and other projects that have had a positive impact on ZKsync.
2. Contributors to GitHub repositories with advanced blockchain technology that have directly or indirectly contributed to the success of ZKsync, including important work related to blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs, developer tools, and developer education.
3. Educators providing training for developers and security researchers, and contributing to the ZKsync community center on GitHub.
4. Contributors to GitHub repositories dedicated to zero-knowledge proofs, Ethereum development tools, and open-source software.
5. Security researchers participating in audit competitions hosted by Cantina, Code4rena, and CodeHawks, ZKsync community mods, ZK Credo translators, ZK Quest participants, and event attendees.
Additionally, 0.4875% of the total supply is allocated to a small group of experimental on-chain communities to explore new ways of organizing using tokens and NFTs. These communities include recipients of $DEGEN and $BONSAI airdrops, Crypto the Game players, and Pudgy and Milady holders.
The ZKsync snapshot was taken on March 24th, and community members can check their eligibility for the airdrop on the Claim.zknation.io website and claim it starting next week until January 3, 2025. Eligible GitHub developers and ZKsync GitHub Discussion Helpers must link their addresses to their accounts by June 25th. External projects, Protocol Guild, and ZKsync native project contributors will be able to claim starting from June 24, 2024. How are ZKsync tokens distributed?
The total supply of ZK tokens is 21 billion tokens, with community allocation accounting for 66.7%, ecosystem incentives 19.9% (distributed by the ZKsync Foundation), investor allocation 17.2%, team allocation 16.1%, and Token Assembly allocation 29.3%. Tokens allocated to investors and teams will be locked in the first year and then unlocked over a 3-year period from June 2025 to June 2028.
ZKsync states that two-thirds (approximately 67%) of ZK tokens will be allocated to the community. Of this, 17.5% of the total supply will be distributed through a one-time airdrop, with the remaining community tokens being distributed over time through ecosystem plans managed by the ZKsync Foundation and ZK Nation governance processes to support the continuously evolving ecosystem.