ZKSync airdrop sparks controversy: a look at the dilemma of cold start for Web3 projects
author:@Web3Mario
Summary:The hottest topic last week was definitely the ZKsync public airdrop verification event. I was originally studying and writing some articles about TON.DAppHowever, seeing this controversial event and theCommunityAfter extensive discussions, I have some thoughts, so I wrote an article and hope to share them with you.
In general, ZKSync's airdrop plan adopts a distribution method based on property proof, focusing more on rewards for developers, core contributors and ZKSync's native Degen whales. This has created a situation where the native Degen whales are laughing and LuMao Studio is shouting.
CommunityThe focus of the debate: Is interaction the key or is the amount of funds the key?
很长一段时间，Web3行业似乎已经形成了通过Airdrop吸引用户使用产品，从而实现项目冷启动的范式。在Layer2赛道中更是如此，通过引导开发者和用户对潜在空投的预期，刺激开发者积极构建并维护DApp，同时刺激用户在发展早期将资金桥接到目标Layer2，并积极参与目标Layer2上面运行的DApp，从而起到活跃生态的目的，这已经成为了一种制式。
因此在过去，用户普遍对于ZKSync的空投预期是对标它的两个直接竞品，Arbitrum和Optimism。当然无论从行业影响力，VC背景，募资规模等角度来思考，这个结论都是合乎逻辑的，然而结果却大相径庭，这就导致了很多复用过去经验来参与ZKSync的用户似乎并没有得到期望内的奖励数量，从而导致了社区陷入到了广泛的争论中。
In order to explore the reasons behind this debate and explore some references for the future, it is natural to review the previous airdrop rules of Arbitrum and Optimism. First, let’s review Arbitrum’s airdrop activity, which dates back to March 2023. It allocated Arb airdrops accounting for 11.62% of the total supply to Aribitrum users, and also allocated Arbitrum airdrops to the Arbitrum ecosystem.DAOArb airdrop of 1.13% was allocated. The airdrop activity is set based on the snapshot data on February 6, 2023. The specific rules for users are as follows:
l Cross-chain to Arbitrum: Users need to transfer funds to Arbitrum One or Arbitrum Nova.
l Transactions in different time periods: The user has made transactions in two different months, six different months, or nine different months.
l Trading frequency and interaction: The user has made more than 4, 10, 25 or 100 transactions, or interacted with a corresponding number of smartcontractInteracted.
l Transaction Value: The total value of transactions conducted by the user exceeds US$10,000, US$50,000 or US$250,000.
l Providing liquidity: Users have deposited more than $10,000, $50,000, or $250,000 in liquid funds.
l Arbitrum Nova activity: The user has made more than 3, 5, or 10 transactions on Arbitrum Nova.
Each rule will have a specific score calculation method, with a maximum score of 15 points. This score is used to determine the number of Arb that the user can receive. The calculation method can be approximated as a linear relationship, but the starting reward starts at 3 points and the maximum reward is 10,200 Arb.DAOThe specific amount of rewards is determined directly according to the activity evaluation method. From the results, 137 DAOs received airdrops, among which Treasure and GMX received the most, 8 million Arbs respectively. According to the current reality, this is indeed a huge profit.
Next, let’s review Optimism. Unlike Arbitrum, Optimism’s airdrops are divided into multiple rounds, with a total of 19% distributed as rewards. The first round of airdrops dates back to June 2022, with a total of 5% distributed to 260,000 addresses. So far, four rounds of airdrops have been carried out. The specific rules for each round of airdrops are as follows:
l Round 1: Ordinary users and active users were divided by the number of transactions, corresponding to addresses with 1 transaction and addresses with more than 4 transactions, as well as participants in Ethereum DAO and Ethereum multi-signaturewalletUsers, Gitcoin donors and cross-chain bridge users. Each identity corresponds to a fixed value reward, and the latter three rewards can be superimposed.
l Second round: Users whose total transaction gas fee is greater than 6.1 USD or whose coin age for participating in the delegated governance is more than 2000 can share 11,742,277 $OP;
l Round 3: Users who participate in the delegated governance and whose coin age exceeds 18,000 can share 19,411,313 $OP;
l Round 4: 10,343,757 $OP were allocated to NFT creators;
From the above review, we can easily find that the number of interactions is used as an important reference indicator in the specific activity settings. Users with more frequent interactions usually receive more rewards. However, this unspoken rule seems to have been abandoned by ZKSync. In the airdrop design of ZKSync, the qualifications and allocation of ZKsync users are divided into four consecutive steps to select and calculate. The specific rules are as follows:
l Eligibility screening:Each address that has conducted transactions on ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite will be checked according to the eligibility criteria. It sets 7 criteria to screen eligible users, such asToken合约交互超过10个且非TokenThe contract must be active for at least 30 days, have sent at least 5 transactions in the ZKsync Era, etc.
l distribute:The specific amount of rewards for an address that meets the above criteria is calculated based on a value scaling formula that is based on the amount sent to ZKsync Era and the amount of these crypto assets inwalletA time-weighted average is calculated based on the retention time, and the allocation of each address is adjusted accordingly. At the same time, the funds participating in the DApp protocol will receive a 2x bonus, which means that if you transfer large funds to ZKSync, keep them for a long time, and actively use these funds to participate in some risky products, such as providing liquidity to DEX, you will get more rewards.
l multiplier:Addresses that meet certain criteria can receive multipliers in the distribution. These criteria are usually holding some high-risk ZKSync native altcoin or NFT.
l Sybil Detection:Finally ZKSync will also doWitchAttack detection ensures that most robots are filtered out. The detection criteria are based on two aspects: the source of the first ETH after the creation of an EOA address, and the interaction between the EOA address and the CEX deposit address. In fact, this also takes advantage of the characteristics of CEX KYC.
From the specific rules, it is not difficult to find that the number of interactions is not involved in the calculation of rewards, but the focus is on the amount of funds in a single account and the willingness to allocate risky assets. Therefore, when the results were announced, many people or studios who had interacted a lot on ZKSync based on past experience were surprised, which was also the source of the entire controversy. Because in order to increase the number of addresses that receive potential airdrops, these users usually choose to disperse large funds into address groups as much as possible. These address groups are usually hundreds or even thousands of addresses, and use small funds to participate in a certain agreement. By predicting some possible incentive behaviors, they frequently interact through automated scripts or manual methods to increase potential returns by completing tasks. However, the airdrop setting of ZKSync makes this strategy invalid. The handling fees paid by many frequently interacting addresses are even higher than the rewards they receive, which naturally caused dissatisfaction among this group of people.
Moreover, it is not difficult to find a large number of airdrop hunter KOLs in X. This group of people publish content with the theme of teaching people how to easily obtain airdrops from project parties. They usually have a wide fan base and strong appeal. Therefore, they put pressure on ZKSync officials through social media in the hope of changing this situation. However, judging from the official attitude, it seems to be very tough and did not modify the rules due to pressure, so the current situation has come about. The accusations and justifications of some possible evil behaviors triggered during the debate are the highlights of this public opinion war.
Judging from the results, the demands of both sides seem to be understandable. The right and wrong can only be determined from what perspective. But I think there are some things worth thinking about, that is, who are the core value users of the cold start phase of the Web3 project today, or what kind of users are the users who should be incentivized in the cold start phase.
Heavy interaction bringsWitchAttack problem, property proof brings monopoly problem
对早鸟参与者基于Airdrop奖励，已经被证明是一个行之有效的Web3项目冷启动的手段，好的空投机制设置能够帮助项目在早期高效的吸引种子用户，同时通过刺激用户对协议关键行为的使用而完成用户教化，增加产品的粘性。这也是很长一段时间内，大部分Web3项目的空投设置着重于对交互行为进行激励的根本原因，然而这样做带来了一个弊端，就是降低了获得奖励的门槛，容易使得活动遭遇女巫攻击。因为交互行为是容易被自动化和批量化，这就给了很多专业团队批量操作的空间，当大量的机器人账户涌入后，虽然会让协议出现短暂的虚假繁荣，然而这些“用户”通常是逐水草而居，无法为项目未来的发展提供动力，在获得奖励后大部分也会套现用于增加资金周转率从而提升收益，这种激励机制反倒稀释了项目方对于那些真正价值用户的奖励数量，实在得不偿失。
So why did this mechanism work well in the early days? This is naturally because there were not so many similar professional teams at that time, and most users had not yet formed a mindset for this incentive mechanism. The interactive behavior was still relatively pure and belonged to real users, which allowed the incentives to be distributed to these users more efficiently. The resulting wealth effect also helped the project party achieve the above benefits. However, with this camemake moneyThe effect of the airdrop effect has obviously failed to effectively attract real users. My personal experience is that the effectiveness of airdrop activities with interaction as the main incentive has basically reached its peak when Arbitrum airdropped.
This is also the fundamental reason why ZKSync wants to abandon the use of interaction numbers as the basis for identifying valuable users based on the relative size of assets. However, this method of proving property may not be without problems. Although it can effectively identify and eliminate the risk of witch attacks, the new problem that comes with it is the uneven distribution of wealth caused by monopoly.
We know that one of the core values of the Web3 project is the bottom-up distributed autonomy model.Xiaobai NavigationThis means that the support of grassroots users (real users with small amounts of funds) is the basic foundation for the development of a project. It is precisely because of grassroots users that some whale users may flock in and form a more sustainable development model. After all, the financial advantage is still available in most scenarios. Only when there are enough grassroots users can the benefits of whale users be large enough. Then the distribution system of property certificates will result in that at the beginning of the cold start, the benefits of whale users among its early bird users will be relatively obvious, which makes it difficult to form effective incentives for grassroots users, and naturally it is impossible to form a cohesive community.
In the final analysis, for Web3 projects, when designing a cold start mechanism, it is still necessary to carefully consider the valuable user portraits for their products, and design corresponding mechanisms according to the current environment. Effectively motivating the above valuable users while trying to avoid witch attacks is the top priority. Therefore, how to design your own cold start mechanism is a very valuable topic, and everyone is welcome to leave a message in my X to discuss. Brainstorm some interesting solutions together.
The article comes from the Internet:ZKSync airdrop sparks controversy: a look at the dilemma of cold start for Web3 projects
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