zkSync Token Launches Amid High Network Load and Security Concerns
The zkSync token (ZK) officially launched on exchanges on June 17. According to CoinMarketCap, the token has a total supply of 21 billion ZK and currently boasts a market capitalization of approximately $788 million. Upon its debut, the token was listed on major exchanges including Binance, Bybit, Gate.io, and KuCoin. Initially, the token's price surged to a high of $0.30 before settling to around $0.21.
The excitement surrounding the token launch was marred by a rise in malicious decentralized applications (DApps) impersonating zkSync. Following the announcement that over 695,000 wallets were eligible for the recent ZK token airdrop, these malicious actors took advantage of the situation. These bad actors exploited Twitter's (X) comment sections, particularly under zkSync’s posts, to distribute links to fraudulent DApps. Many of these accounts abused Twitter’s verified status to appear legitimate, thereby increasing their chance of deceiving users.
As the launch approached, zkSync experienced a high network load, leading to degraded performance in some remote procedure call (RPC) services. In an announcement on X, zkSync acknowledged the network strain and the resultant issues with RPC services, which are crucial for node communication and network operations such as sending transactions and querying data. The zkSync team assured users they were working on increasing RPC capacities and advised them to stay tuned for further updates.
The token distribution program, set to run from June 17 to July 16, aims to distribute 10.5 million ZK tokens to eligible users. However, the community has raised concerns about the methodology used to filter Sybil farms, which are multiple accounts created to exploit airdrop distributions. In response, the zkSync team has assured the community that they are addressing these concerns to ensure a fair and transparent distribution process.