Recently, the news of zkSync’s upcoming token issuance and predictions about airdrop rules have sparked market discussions. In this article, PANews reviews the data of zkSync for this year and discovers that while zkSync still maintains a leading position in the market, there is a decreasing willingness among users to participate, and profit-capturing ability is significantly decreasing. This is closely related to zkSync’s continuous airdrops over the years, subpar quality of ecosystem projects, and neglect of user rights.
Despite the fact that zkSync Era’s total value locked (TVL) has increased by approximately 44.1% since the beginning of the year, reaching nearly $850 million as of May 6th according to L2 BEAT data, the ecosystem projects within zkSync with high TVL are quite limited in number and predominantly focus on DeFi. Only a few zkSync projects have TVL exceeding ten million dollars, accounting for nearly 66% of the total TVL. The ecosystem’s reliance on DEX and lending platforms among the top 10 projects highlights the challenges faced in attracting user participation.
In terms of user numbers and capital scale, zkSync Era has shown decent growth this year. Data from Dune indicates that as of May 6th, zkSync Era has nearly 3.13 million users, marking a 16.3% increase from the beginning of the year. Additionally, over 3.22 million ETH have been bridged, representing a 38.8% increase. However, the average amount of ETH bridged per user is only 1.37, with over 80% of users bridging less than 1 ETH, and only 1.3% having balances exceeding 10 ETH. This indicates that while the anticipation for zkSync’s airdrops remains appealing, users tend to favor low-cost investments.
The participation of a significant number of yield farmers has generated substantial profits for zkSync Era. Recent data from Dune shows that zkSync Era has generated profits of around 1848 ETH in the past four months due to gas fees, accounting for 10.3% of the total profit of Rollup chains. However, there is still a noticeable gap when compared to competitors like Base, Arbitrum, and Scroll, with monthly profits showing a significant decline.
The decline in transaction fees is attributed to zkSync’s technological advancements, which have reduced transaction costs by 10 to 20 times compared to previous levels. The lack of protection of user rights and the inaction of the officials have led to a loss of community trust in zkSync.
The disregard for user rights and the lack of action by the officials have become significant reasons hindering the expansion of zkSync’s market. Several incidents, such as the Eralend flash loan attack resulting in approximately $3.4 million in losses, the lack of compensation for affected users, and the silence on compensation issues, have raised concerns about the ecosystem’s integrity.
In the face of significant damage to user interests, zkSync has failed to implement effective measures to address these issues, highlighting poor ecosystem management and low costs of wrongdoing as contributing factors to the chaos. Community members have expressed dissatisfaction with zkSync’s failure to support quality projects, allowing various Rug projects to thrive unchecked. Despite emphasizing the importance of the community, zkSync has shown a lack of concern for project misconduct and user rights, prioritizing gas income over community welfare.
In the current landscape of intense L2 market competition, zkSync faces greater challenges if it does not prioritize ecosystem development and user interests, especially as the impact of airdrops diminishes.