Author: gm365 Source: X, @gm365
The airdrop by ZK signifies the end of an era
One wave subsides, another rises.
While the CEO of L0, who created “the largest witch library in history,” is still engrossed in a battle against an unstoppable witch collective, the emergence of ZK, “the largest anti-airdrop” in history, has left devastation in its wake.
Sorrow and calamity abound, almost as if the heavens themselves are angry.
Why?
It is often those you hold the highest expectations for that end up hurting you the most. Just as in matters of the heart, Web3 seems to follow a similar pattern. zkSync, hailed as the last hope for L2, after a four-year wait, only received a cold response: “Unfortunately, YOU are not eligible for the airdrop.”
Not checking for “witches” among the “anti-witches”
With 10 million addresses and 4 billion transactions, adhering to the original intention of “for the common good, not checking for witches,” how does one select “real users”?
zkSync chose to employ a cold and strict set of mathematical rules to assist in this process.
The process can be roughly divided into three steps: initial screening, allocation, and bonus.
The initial screening criteria to enter the scoring pool are quite lenient, such as having 10 transactions, interacting with DeFi projects, holding a magic lamp, making donations, etc. Most individuals who engage “seriously” in these activities should be able to enter the pool.
The allocation phase is where the majority of users are filtered out. The allocation is not based on industry gold standards like wallet activity, transaction volume, or number of transactions, but rather on the “funds retention” similar to DeFi deposit projects.
While it may be common for staking projects like EtehrFi to require funds retention, applying similar rules to filter out users on an L2 platform has left most people feeling “unacceptable” or even “outraged.”
As for the “bonus” phase, it caters to enhancing the experience for “veteran OGs,” premium accounts, and dedicated users.
However, this is not the primary concern for many, as they have realized that the main issue lies in the fact that the food in the bowl has disappeared, making the presence of a chicken leg irrelevant.
Therefore, the core issue here is: an L2 platform that everyone had the highest expectations for, using rules similar to DeFi projects that involve fund retention, has filtered out over 90% of user addresses, leading to the largest anti-airdrop disaster in history.
In comparison, the stark contrast between the distribution to premium users and the neglect of regular users, the opacity of the distribution rules, and the reasons for not allowing NanSen to check for witches are all secondary issues.
The main problem is that the common people have not been fed, leaving them resentful towards the wealthy elite.
Reviewing the anti-airdrop
Leaving aside the waste of time and energy over the years and the unbearable gas-related losses, it is understandable why some are calling for ZK to refund gas.
While emotional expressions can bring solace and understanding, it does not help in determining the next steps or finding ways to continue making money in the industry. Analyzing the reasons, identifying gaps, and adjusting strategies is the way forward.
As for why project teams, who often claim that “the community is everything,” chose to anger 90% of users with their anti-witch approach, it is not worth delving too deeply into. If you put yourself in the project team’s shoes and examine the specific rules of the “allocation” phase mentioned earlier, you will realize that solely through this mathematical formula, the project team has effectively excluded industrialized witch collectives and regular users, leaving them out in the cold.
Why choose fund retention and double bonuses for DeFi deposits/LPs as an anti-witch strategy?
Two reasons:
1. For L2, TVL is crucial
2. The project team understands the common users’ speculation on “airdrop rules” (which is actually a misjudgment)
During previous ARB and STARK airdrops, some prominent figures mentioned that the airdrops were too vulnerable to industrialized farming due to the easily predictable rules. It was all too obvious.
Most people thought the same way, KOLs taught the same, and individuals were following the same steps, with a bunch of third-party tools helping them compile relevant data and rank addresses with earnestness.
This cascading effect, akin to boiling a frog in warm water, caused everyone to let down their guard, believing that a small trickster like ZK could not outsmart them. However, ZK did not play by conventional rules, flipping the script and catching everyone off guard.
Some say that ZK’s airdrop rules filtered out low-end industrialized witch studios and regular retail investors, distributing rewards only to premium users and high-end witch studios (with deep pockets and premium witch addresses).
This observation is spot on and evident in reality.
For instance, the L0 witch collective, which distributed 0.6 ETH in a single day, ended up receiving millions of ZK tokens, showcasing a typical case of a high-end witch collective.
In other words, the core issue of missing out on ZK this time lies in a severe misjudgment of the airdrop rules (due to underestimation), where everyone wanted multiple accounts but lacked the financial muscle to do so.
The state of industrialized farming
If we were to judge by the airdrop rules of ARB and even STARK, the 90% of users filtered out this time were mostly eligible and could have potentially attained a favorable outcome, even rising to the ranks of “premium accounts.”
But why did things not work out with ZK?
It’s quite simple; times have changed. The core issue lies in:
The excessive prosperity of industrialized farming systems.
The excessive maturity of the EVM ecosystem, coupled with AI tools like GPT4, has drastically lowered the barriers to batch account creation and interactions, leading to severe inflation in the number of accounts and transactions.
This is the path of evolution in the era, beyond individual control.
It’s akin to the scenes from the early days of the Industrial Revolution when skilled handworkers in the textile industry were replaced by machine looms. The skills that handworkers relied on for their livelihood were deemed insignificant by the machine producers. Inefficient, costly, and error-prone, these skills were no match for the relentless work ethic and precision of machines.
At that time, just like now.
The era of industrialized farming has arrived, and having multiple accounts is no longer an advantage, as it can easily be surpassed by the interactive codes generated by GPT4, relegating it to a thing of the past.
However, this situation is not unknown to you or me; the project teams, VCs, and exchanges are also aware of it.
The number of addresses and transactions are artificially inflated, a fact that everyone tacitly acknowledges, albeit with differing opinions on the extent of inflation.
However, Total Value Locked (TVL) is a difficult metric to manipulate, as it requires stacking real assets.
Hence, the savvy project teams have chosen this hard-to-falsify metric as the core rule for distributing airdrops.
In this aspect, it is akin to the extravagant tail of a male peacock.
The male peacock’s tail is extremely attention-grabbing, causing numerous inconveniences and even endangering its life. Why would nature evolve such a “useless and dangerous” burden?
Because it serves as the hardest-to-falsify “signal” and the “gold standard” that the female peacock finds convincing and is willing to commit to. Signals that can be easily falsified are not worth believing.
Similarly, setting up parameters in programs can help create perfect daily, weekly, and monthly activity data, high transaction numbers, and high transaction volumes for your address cluster. The relentless farming machines will tirelessly interact on your behalf until the end of time. However, maintaining a few hundred U in each account as funds retention is something that no program or GPT can help you achieve.
Once again, money has flowed back into the hands of the wealthy big players who do not lack funds. Even in Web3, the playing field remains as unfair as in Web2, unfortunately.
Where does the path lead?
In an era where gas fees are negligible, and industrialized witchcraft prevails, where do the farmers go from here? Will Web3 continue to reward us, the brave pioneers of the Wild West?
One thing is certain:
▪️ Web3 is still in its early stages
▪️ Large funding projects will continue to emerge
▪️ Airdrops will never cease
▪️ Opportunities for making money in Web3 are still far greater than in traditional Web2
The difference lies in:
▪️ The era has changed
▪️ Rules are constantly evolving
▪️ The overly mature ecosystem has become too competitive, making it a less attractive option for ordinary individuals
It is essential to trust in the choices of the era. For now, opportunities for those like us, the common people, to change our fate lie here in Web3.
From the standpoint of probability and ROI in making money, airdrops remain the most suitable track for ordinary individuals to dig up their first pot of gold. Unfortunately, due to rapid industry changes and factors like AI, the difficulty has increased.
If previously one could mindlessly follow KOL tutorials to reap rewards, the future will likely require more intelligence:
Choosing ecosystems, projects, interaction methods, balancing funds and quantity, and maximizing output.
The era of mindless farming leading to wealth has ended, and the era of strategic farming for wealth is here.
