ZKsync to Airdrop 3.6 Billion ZK Tokens Next Week

The ZKsync Association is preparing to airdrop 3.675 billion ZK tokens to early users and adopters of the Ethereum Layer 2 network, ZKsync, next week.

This airdrop accounts for 17.5% of the total 21 billion ZK tokens, as announced by ZKsync on Tuesday. Users will be able to claim their tokens from next week until January 3, 2025, while contributors can start claiming from June 24.

Additionally, 49.1% of the token supply will be allocated to ecosystem initiatives, with 17.2% reserved for investors and 16.1% for 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,” stated the ZKsync Association. “When the ZKsync governance system launches in the coming weeks, the community will hold the largest supply of liquid tokens for directing protocol governance upgrades.”

ZKsync has announced details of the highly anticipated airdrop, shortlisting 695,232 wallets. Eligibility and allocations were based on a snapshot of activity on ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite, taken on March 24, 2024, at 0:00 UTC, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the ZKsync Era mainnet launch.

The 17.5% ZK airdrop is divided between two groups within the community: users (89%) and contributors (11%). Users are those who have conducted transactions on ZKsync and met a certain activity threshold. Contributors encompass individuals, developers, researchers, communities, and companies who have supported the ZKsync ecosystem and protocol through development, advocacy, or education, regardless of their network activity.

The remaining community allocation will be distributed over time through ecosystem initiatives managed by the ZKsync Foundation and the ZK Nation governance process, aimed at supporting the ecosystem’s growth as new users join, according to ZKsync.

Less than half a percent of the total supply is designated for experimental communities. This includes wallets that received the Degen and Bonsai airdrops due to their activity on decentralized social networks Farcaster and Lens, respectively. It also includes those who have played Crypto the Game, recently acquired by Uniswap Labs, as well as participants in NFT projects Pudgy Penguins and Milady Maker.

The rest of the supply is allocated to investors and the Matter Labs team. These ZK tokens are locked for the first year and will then be unlocked over three years, from June 2025 to June 2028.

The announcement confirms earlier report that ZKsync would conduct a token airdrop in mid-June, with a total supply of 21 billion tokens. It also marks a rebranding from zkSync to ZKsync.

How the Airdrop Allocations Were Calculated

The community airdrop uses a points system. Wallets earned points for various actions, such as interacting with 10 smart contracts on ZKsync Era, depositing liquidity into DeFi protocols, and trading more than 10 ERC-20 tokens. Points were also awarded for certain activities on ZKsync Lite, including donating to a Gitcoin round or making transactions over three different months before the launch of the ZKsync Era mainnet.

Once points were assigned, each wallet’s allocation was determined based on assets bridged to ZKsync Era. Addresses could receive multipliers based on their activity on ZKsync and the Ethereum mainnet.

Following this process, addresses with fewer than 450 ZK tokens had their tokens recycled back into the pool, while those with more than 100,000 tokens had their excess tokens recycled. Consequently, the minimum allocation for each wallet ended up being 917 ZK.

Putting ‘Real People First’

Notably, the airdropped tokens will have no vesting or lock-up periods and will be “fully liquid on day one.” When asked if this might lead to selling pressure, Alex Gluchowski, founder and CEO of Matter Labs, told that “people are free to dispose of their tokens.”

“It’s a community governance airdrop,” Gluchowski explained. “We hope that most recipients will participate in governance, delegate their tokens, and become active community members. If some choose not to, it’s better for the tokens to be held by those who deeply care about the protocol.”

Related: ZkSync Airdrop Speculation Heats Up for Mid-June Launch

The ZK token distribution will limit each address to a maximum of 100,000 tokens. Gluchowski emphasized that “it’s not a whales-first airdrop. It’s a community-first airdrop,” and he believes that no one would be offended by this cap.

Gluchowski stated that the airdrop has been designed to “naturally prioritize humans and put real people first.” He claimed that bots engaging in a lot of useless activity have been filtered out from the airdrop.

He acknowledged the difficulty of completely eliminating bots but noted that two-thirds of the allocation is going to the community, more than to the team and investors. This, he argued, shows that “community is everything” for ZKsync.