zkSync Faces Backlash From the Crypto Community After Its Recent ZK Token Airdrop Announcement

Ethereum’s Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Layer-2 scaling solution, zkSync, is facing backlash from the crypto community after its recent ZK token airdrop announcement.

zkSync, an Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution, has announced an upcoming airdrop of its ZK token, with a total supply of 21 billion ZK tokens. Of these tokens, 17.5% will be airdropped to 695,000 eligible wallets on June 17.

According to the announcement, the distribution will be as follows: early users will receive 50% of the airdropped tokens, while zkSync's team and investors will get 33.3%. The remaining 16.7% will be allocated to zkSync's community members.

The airdrop eligibility is determined by several criteria, including total gas used on zkSync before the March 25 snapshot, the number of transactions, and the earliest interaction with zkSync. Eligible users can receive up to 100,000 ZK tokens.

However, the announcement has sparked controversy within the crypto community, with some users expressing dissatisfaction with their token allocation. Despite being long-term, active users, many investors claim to have received a lower token allocation than others with less activity.

For instance, one X user, despite being in the top 0.04% of wallets, only received 1,023 ZK tokens. At the same time, wallets with significantly less activity that were created after the snapshot received the maximum allocation.

Several top-ranking projects built on zkSync have also expressed disappointment after not being included in the airdrop. NFT project zkApes and NFT marketplace Element both stated that they did not receive any airdrops, despite generating between $15–20 million in gas fees for the network.

As a result, zkApes, Element NFT, and other projects have formed a coalition to "keep the pressure" on zkSync's team and negotiate a token allocation that will be distributed among their communities. Critics have emphasized the need for "transparency and fairness."

A Lack of Anti-Sybil Filtering?

The airdrop has also drawn attention due to the lack of anti-Sybil filtering, which aims to identify and exclude bot swarms or multiple wallets controlled by a single entity. This has led to concerns about the potential for Sybil wallets to receive a substantial portion of the airdrop.

According to an initial list provided by LayerZero Labs, Sybil wallets are estimated to receive around $135 million in ZK tokens from the airdrop. However, this list has since been discarded by Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero.