LayerZero, cross chain infrastructure, has finally launched its token: $ZRO. In 2022 and 2023 I had already done several articles writing about LayerZero and some dapps (in particular Stargate Finance). Stargate is the main liquidity hub and one of the largest bridges by volumes transacted. Since the first article written in mid-2022 ( Bridge And Cross Chain Liquidity? LayerZero And Stargate ), dozens of chains have been added (Zksync, Linea, Base, Scroll, Blast, Astar, Taiko, etc). At the same time, many builders have used this technology that allows you to move native liquidity from one chain to another. Some dapps also allow you to bridge NFT from one chain to another or to perform "refuel" (a function integrated for example by Merkly that allows you to send gas to a chain where you don't have one).
SYBIL FILTERING
Generally, the early users of a protocol are rewarded when the token is launched. However, there is a lot of inorganic traffic generated by sybil clusters (bots), hunters and farmers. The work of filtering the addresses was very hard, as there were over 6 million addresses that had used LayerZero.
A sybil hunt was also opened where users could report sybil clusters and receive 10% of their allocation (if the reports were correct).
CEO Bryan Pellegrino, aided by Nansen and Chaos Labs, filtered approximately 5 million addresses. What does it mean to be Sybil? An entity that manages more than 10 addresses. You should know that there are now industrial farmers who only do this job: they create tens of thousands of addresses and interact on the chains in search of airdrops. Very often it is not easy to identify them because they are evolving by programming bots with behaviors similar to real users. The biggest mistake a sybil can make is using the same exchange for deposits/withdrawals, passing funds from one address to another, withdrawing the same sums or carrying out the same operations on all addresses. This is a screen of Pellegrino coming from on chain analysis by Nansen and Chaos Labs:
Sybil or not-sybil? It can be seen how these addresses used a single withdrawal entity (Kucoin), the same funding and the same amounts to carry out the transactions. The number of dapps and transactions is also similar.
AIRDROP CRITERIA
After this long filtering work that began in May and ended on June 18th there were 1.28 million eligible addresses. Approximately 227k addresses had more than 100 interactions, almost 1M addresses with more than 50 interactions. 1 million addresses carried out transactions on more than 15 chains. The main criterion was based on fees spent with bonuses (for early and post-snapshot transactions) and malus (for spam transactions: bridges of small amounts).
The eligibility check for users who had retroactively used their dapps occurred between June 18 and 19, 2024 (depending on time zone). The claim and listing on the major exchanges took place on June 20th. The snapshot was taken on May 1, 2024.
The tokenomics of $ZRO sees a supply of 250M at genesis (TGE) divided as follows (initial 20% to users/protocols):
-25% unlock Day 1 – 8.5% at TGE
-11.0% for future Snapshots and RFP
-5% to LayerZero Foundation
-0.5% to community members
The protocols built on LayerZero received incentives in $ZRO tokens which they distributed to users, according to their eligibility criteria (interactions over time, fees spent, any votes in the DAO, staking of the Governance token, etc.). Each protocol received different quantities of tokens, these same tokens were divided among all those entitled to it. You must consider that if a protocol has received 5M $ZRO (example), these tokens must be divided among hundreds of thousands of addresses so the amount received may not be large.
MY $ZRO ELIGIBILITY
I can consider myself an early user of LayerZero because I have been using Stargate since 2022. However, although I have often used Stargate (directly) or through the Jumper aggregator (which also uses Stargate among the routes), I have not spent many fees: around $190. I have used Merkly and other dapps that farmers have used for farming very little but I mainly focused on 4 things:
-Pools on Stargate (which I am continuing to use)
-Stargate bridge
-Transactions on Orderly Network (mainly perps exchange)
-Staking $Radar on DappRadar (they use L0 cross chain infrastructure with staking on Ethereum mainnet and BSC)
I preferred to focus on quality (real interactions) and not quantity. Hey all in all it would have been better to bridge some NFT but that's okay: I'm happy to have received my $ZRO allocation. These are my stats (the number of transactions is not precise because this is not an official check but it reports interesting things such as months of activity and volumes):
LayerZero's idea of doing a sort of on-chain recap of its activities was very nice. The chain I used most is Arbitrum, the protocol I used most is Stargate (was there any doubt?):
When the claim went live, some users were struck by the fact that a small donation was required: essentially $0.10 for every $ZRO. They called it "Proof Of Donation". This donation went to the Protocol Guild (Ethereum Devs). Something different definitely that you can see as a small tax on your allocation sent to the Protocol Guild. It probably may have also damaged/limited some bots that were not able to claim automatically.
I didn't understand the complaints of some users because remember NOTHING IS OWED TO YOU. You are using a bridge because you need it. You are using an LP because you want an income. You're minting an NFT because you want it in your collection. It's true, it is possible to speculate on the launch of Governance tokens and therefore airdrops but if you are not eligible or if someone decides to add a small fee you should accept it without complaining. Remember that the Governance token or utility token that is airdropped to you is something extra. You are not doing swap/bridge because the protocol told you to do this to receive airdrop. You are using X dapp for the technology behind it!
I didn't even understand the huge FUD on Zksync which set different criteria, had to filter 6M addresses and did a bit of selection. Remember that IF these protocols do not filter bot/sybil...the airdrop becomes just a few dozen dollars. You have to share it with millions of bot/sybils: the funds are not infinite. Many people are interpreting these airdrops as "cash grabs" - it doesn't work that way. Ineligible users complain about spending fees and making 700 transactions? You are indirectly saying that your traffic is inorganic therefore you don't deserve the Governance token!
AIRDROP CONSIDERATION
The filtering work was very hard therefore admirable and I must say that the results were excellent. I probably, in addition to the fees, would also have given weight to the volumes and LP (because I consider Stargate the main LayerZero Hub). I would have considered: fees, volumes, activity over time, LP, diversity of chains used (hard cap 10 chains) and diversity of dapps. For example, a tier model of this type:
-Spent fees from $20-50 (10 $ZRO), $51-200 (20 $ZRO), $201-400 (40 $ZRO), 401$-over (hard cap)
-Volumes from 100-1000$ (5 $ZRO), 1001$-50000$ (30 $ZRO), etc
-Activity from 5 months to 8 (5 $ZRO), from 9 to 12 (15 $ZRO), etc
Same thing with LP too, for used chans and dapps. For each criterion met, the $ZRO due is added and the final allocation is obtained. Obviously this is just my personal opinion which has no value and I accept the great commitment of Bryan and the team! If you still have to make the claim, be careful to only use official profiles because Twitter is full of scammers.
LayerZero Social Contacts:
Bryan Pellegrino CEO (Twitter)
LayerZero Labs (Twitter)
LayerZero Foundation For Claim (Twitter)
LayerZero (Discord)
LayerZero (Medium)
LayerZero (Telegram)
My Social Contact:
0x_Davide (Twitter)
Darknet666 (Discord)
