Airdrop Report Rashomon: Do you want pattern or profit? Crypto projects are in a dilemma

Written by: Wang 1, Xiaobai Navigation Coderworld

Editor: David, coderworld

Whether it is an individual who focuses on experiencing the project or a studio dedicated to making money, the festive atmosphere on the day of the airdrop is no less than that of the Chinese New Year.

But as the project parties’ standards for airdrop distribution become increasingly stringent, this happiness is becoming increasingly rare.

checkWitchIt has almost become a necessary stage before the airdrop of a large project, and the main expectation of users before the airdrop has changed from "how much can I make in this wave" to "don't be fooled in this wave"Witch”.

The freeloaders have gradually formed a classic dichotomy for judging projects: if they check, it means they have no vision; if they don’t check, it means they have a big vision.

Water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it. The wool party is also an important source of large paper data. Faced with users that cannot be ignored, crypto projects seem to be caught in a dilemma of choosing between pattern or profit.

In this dilemma, different projects express different attitudes.

zkSync’s overtures

On May 22, zkSync, which plans to hold a TGE this week, posted a message saying, “I absolutely cannot censor. Censorship is the killer of freedom.”

As soon as these words came out,CommunityI started to become uneasy.

Everyone speculated that zkSync was openly talking about the dangers of censorship, but in fact, its real intention was not to criticize censorship. By criticizing censorship, it was showing that it might be relatively relaxed about checking witches in the future.

After all, if you have raised a flag to criticize censorship and then investigate witches, it is natural that the big project will not be inconsistent and give everyone an excuse.

How come the comments were so excited when it was just a passing comment and didn’t even say that it would not investigate the airdrop? How did it become news when it seemed like just a straightforward opinion?

Because this month, another project LayerZero, which has also attracted the attention of the porn community,The anti-witch mechanism implemented is more stringent than people can imagine.

L0, launching an increasingly fierce "witch hunt"

In May 2024, LayerZero, a long-awaited project for the cryptocurrency community, announced that it had completed the first quarter snapshot and launched an anti-witch campaign before officially issuing the token.

Unlike previous projects that used databases to identify Sybil addresses, LayerZero introducedSelf-reportingand"Reported by others"mechanism.

Starting May 4, users who believe their addresses are suspected of being sybil addresses have 14 days to file a complaint with LayerZero. Self-reporting,After confirmation by LayerZero, the airdrop quota of 15% can be retained, but the airdrop share of addresses that have not reported themselves will be cleared once identified.

After the "self-exposure" phase, the next 14 days will beReport Mode,encourageCommunityUsers report each other's Sybil behavior. Successful reporters can obtain the 10% airdrop share of the reported address.TokenIf it is 0, then the whistleblower will not receive any reward.

Yes, LayerZero introduced a human nature model in the matter of catching witches - the reporting mechanism. This unexpected and thunderous method has a great impact on society.Xiaobai Navigation区引发轩然大波，更多人对这种机制表示愤怒，并称 “这不是加密社区该出现的事”、“宁愿枪毙也不自首”。 Although there is widespread opposition, many people still see opportunities in this mechanism of coercion and inducement.

At the end of the self-reporting period, LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino On the social platform, it stated that more than 338,000 addresses have been admitted to being witches. On the second day of the reporting mode, LayerZero said that it had collected 2,312 witch reports and was gradually reviewing them.

After this move, it is expected that only a small part of the originally planned airdrop addresses will be retained. Judging from the results, the project party has indeed achieved the purpose of "witch hunting".

What we need to maintain is the pattern or the interests?

But the focus of this matter seems to no longer be on the effectiveness of catching witches.

Airdrops are meant to reward users who invest real time and energy in the project. The original intention of Anti-Witch is to ensure fairer distribution of airdrops and protect the value of rewards for real users from being diluted by a large number of fake users in the hands of the studio, while also ensuring the healthy development of the project in the future.

From the perspective of protecting fair distribution and promoting industry development, the project party’s “witch catching” behavior is worthy of recognition, but the use of reporting, especially a reporting system with rewards, may change the nature of the matter.

The other side of human nature cannot withstand magnification. Under the reporting mechanism, individuals who have no conflicts of interest may become opponents in a zero-sum game.

When the reporting mechanism is tied to one's own interests, it may become a tool for personal gain. The distrust between people is constantly eroded by reports and will be infinitely magnified, which will have a great impact on solving the trust problem. crypto This is indeed a profound irony.

Taking a step back, if the project wants to ensure fair distribution of airdrops, shouldn’t they inform the Sybil detection mechanism in advance? Instead of waiting for many fake addresses to give the project data a good-looking data before “hiding the bow and the bird is dead”?

The continuous upgrading of anti-witch mechanisms is a foreseeable trend in the industry. Once mechanisms like Layerzero take off, they will most likely be imitated by more projects in the future, and the risk of individual users being accidentally hurt will become greater and greater. For ordinary users, it may be a good strategy to abandon "more and faster" and turn to "precise and slow" in operational interviews, and think about how to be a real user.

Airdrops are a game of “common prosperity” where you pay and I work, and in the end, it’s good for you, me, and everyone.

But gradually, it seems that everyone is beginning to be unable to control themselves: the project owners want a better ecological future, so they will continue to expand their methods of detecting witches; the wool party wants to successfully get the airdrop, so they must continue to improve their technology and successfully hide it from the project owners. Even now, the wool party has to start to be wary of each other.

In this "witch hunt", people frequently perform scenes of "Infernal Affairs" among each other, and airdrops eventually turn into endless torture. There is no free lunch anymore, but a tiring competition for interests.

The arena of human nature has never ended. I wish you peace in the turbulence.

The article comes from the Internet:Airdrop Report Rashomon: Do you want pattern or profit? Crypto projects are in a dilemma

Related recommendation: BNB Chain Beacon Chain Migration Guide

BNB Chain Fusion is a strategic shift to migrate the functions of the BNB Beacon Chain to the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and replace the BNB Beacon Chain. The BNB Beacon Chain was originally designed as a staking and governance layer.SafetySex and support for decentralizationexchange(DEX) to complement BNB Smart Chain (BSC). However, with the development and differentiation of BSC…