On May 2, the cross-chain interoperability protocol LayerZero officially announced on X that the first snapshot (Snapshot #1) has been completed and more information will be released soon.
As one of the most anticipated potential airdrop projects in the community, LayerZero’s brief official announcement was also interpreted by the community as “the airdrop snapshot has been completed, and the big one is really coming.”
On May 3, Layer Zero officials once again announced that they would release an important announcement that evening to "demonstrate continued trust in community members." However, just as the community was speculating whether LayerZero was about to announce detailed airdrop rules, the announcement that LayerZero finally issued seemed to give all users a heavy blow - the tokens were indeed going to be issued, but multiple rounds of witch screening activities were required first.
Airdrop Background: Six Million Users
According to the description in the official document, a key factor that LayerZero needs to consider when formulating a token distribution plan is how to determine the best user cluster. In LayerZero's view, the best users should be the most "persistent" users, and the so-called "persistence" is defined as those who are most likely to continue to use LayerZero in the future or follow their past usage habits.
On the evening of May 2, LayerZero co-founder Bryan Pellegrino responded to the community on X and said that considering all the networks covered by LayerZero, the actual total number of users of the protocol is about 5.8 million addresses; and the official announcement last night revealed that the current total number of LayerZero users is nearly 6 million addresses.
Combined with past airdrop cases in the industry, millions of addresses can be considered super-large. Therefore, for LayerZero, it is necessary to reduce the scope of airdrops through mechanism design or witch screening so that tokens can be distributed to potential users in a way that is more in line with the project party’s expectations.
Witch judgment rules
In the official information released by LayerZero, no specific screening rules are given for the time being (probably to prevent witches from self-checking, thus affecting the effect of the "self-exposure" stage mentioned below). It only lists several interactive behaviors that may be regarded as witches. Bryan also made some additional explanations on some cases on his personal X.
In short, the interactions that may cause an address to be judged as a Sybil include:
A single person or entity uses dozens, hundreds, or thousands of addresses to communicate in bulk;
In order to transfer NFTs across different chains, a "worthless" NFT was minted;
· Have used commonly used “witch-like” applications such as Merkly, L2 Pass, and L2 Marathon;
In order to leave a record of interactions on multiple networks, very small amounts (such as $0.01) are transferred back and forth between different chains;
If you think you are a witch, then you probably are one.
Regarding the use of tools such as Merkly, some users questioned that this move may lead to large-scale "accidental killings". Bryan responded: "If you are a real user and have used Merkly for the purpose of reducing gas, then you may not be judged as a witch, but if you are just using Merkly to transfer assets back and forth, then you may be a witch."
Witch Screening Rounds
According to LayerZero's official disclosure, this witch purge will be divided into three rounds in total.
The first round is the "self-exposure" stage, which will last for 14 days. Users who believe that they are suspected of being a witch can "self-expose" through the window provided by LayerZero during this stage to retain the 15% airdrop allocation.
It is worth mentioning that in order to facilitate the studio's "self-exposure", LayerZero also "thoughtfully" provides an API tool for large-scale submission of addresses.
The second stage is the "trial" stage, during which LayerZero officials will conduct Sybil screening according to specific rules. The screening results will be announced on May 18, and addresses found during this stage will not receive any airdrop allocations.
The third stage is the "mutual biting" stage, which will last from May 18 to May 31. LayerZero encourages community users to report witches to each other. Successful reporters can obtain 10% of the airdrop share of the reported address.
The biggest witch purge in history?
Combined with the schedule that LayerZero has disclosed, the protocol’s governance token will most likely not be officially issued until after the “biting each other” phase ends on May 31, so the expected coin issuance date should be in June.
For users who are looking forward to the LayerZero airdrop, they need to survive a full month of witch cleansing before receiving the final reward. Considering the huge user scale of LayerZero itself and the reusability of witch tags on different projects, what LayerZero is launching may not only be the largest witch cleansing campaign in history, but its screening results may also have a profound impact on the potential airdrops of other projects in the future.