ZKsync to Airdrop 3.675 Billion ZK Tokens to 695K Wallets Next Week

ZKsync, Ethereum’s first zkEVM chain, is set to airdrop 3.675 billion ZK tokens to 695,232 wallets next week. The distribution marks the largest token airdrop among major rollups, seeking to decentralize governance and reward active community members.

ZKsync revealed on June 11 that 17.5% of the token’s total supply of 21 billion would be distributed to 695,232 eligible wallets. The remaining tokens are allocated for various initiatives, the zkSync team, investors, and a “token assembly.”

ZKsync to Airdrop 17.5% of Token Supply to Community, Prioritizing Real Users and Contributors

The airdrop will reward real users and contributors within the ZKsync ecosystem. The distribution will be divided into two main categories: 89% for users who have transacted on ZKsync and 11% for contributors such as developers, researchers, and community advocates.

A further 49.1% of the token supply will be distributed through ecosystem initiatives, with 17.2% allocated to investors and 16.1% to the Matter Labs team.

“Awarding more tokens in the airdrop than to the Matter Labs team and investors is more than a symbolic decision for the community,” said the ZKsync Association. “When the ZKsync governance system launches in the coming weeks, the community will have the largest supply of liquid tokens to direct protocol governance upgrades.”

The ZKsync team said their community members can check their eligibility and claim their tokens starting next week via the claim portal . The claim period extends until January 3, 2025, with specific deadlines for GitHub developers and ZKsync GitHub Discussion Helpers to associate their addresses by June 25, 2024.

Ahead of the airdrop, ZK tokens traded up to $0.71 on pre-market perpetual exchanges like Aevo and PancakeSwap, implying a market capitalization of approximately $14.91 billion.

ZKsync Announces Detailed Airdrop Plan, Prioritizes Genuine User Engagement and Fair Distribution

Eligibility and allocations are based on activity snapshots taken on March 24, 2024, marking the first anniversary of the ZKsync Era mainnet launch. The allocation process for the airdrop involves several steps.

Initially, every address transacted on ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite was assessed for eligibility. Subsequent allocations were calculated based on the value of assets bridged into the ZKsync Era and their duration within the ecosystem. Additional multipliers were applied for behaviors indicating genuine user engagement, such as holding ZKsync-native NFTs and tokens or experimenting with smart contract wallets.

The airdrop design incorporates thorough Sybil detection to ensure fair distribution and mitigate the impact of bots.

“Industrial farmers play destructive games. They give very little to extract a lot, like parasites leeching off the community,” noted the ZKsync team.

Just under half a percent of the supply is being allocated to what the project is calling experimental communities. This includes wallets that received the Degen and Bonsai airdrops due to activity on decentralized social networks Farcaster and Lens, respectively. It will also include those who have played Crypto the Game, which was recently acquired by Uniswap Labs, and NFT projects Pudgy Penguins and Milady Maker.