LayerZero Airdrop Sparks Controversy, Token Distribution Mechanism Faces Challenges

Recently, the LayerZero Foundation announced that its highly anticipated Airdrop eligibility inquiry page is now live. However, the Airdrop results have left many users feeling disappointed and dissatisfied.

As one of the potential Airdrop projects that the community is highly concerned about, LayerZero's Airdrop has sparked widespread anticipation. However, with the end of the month-long witch wash event, a large number of users found themselves identified as witch accounts and ultimately failed to qualify for the Airdrop. This outcome has raised doubts within the community regarding the project team's sincerity, while also prompting a deep reflection on the current industry Token distribution model.

LayerZero was established in November 2021, during a bull market in the blockchain industry. With strong capital support and promotion from industry opinion leaders, the project rapidly emerged. The announcement of the governance Token Airdrop generated significant reactions within the community. According to data, since last April, the on-chain interaction volume of LayerZero has significantly increased, with daily transaction counts reaching as high as 490,000. Such high-frequency interactions not only improved the platform's data performance but also brought considerable revenue to its ecosystem.

However, as users were filled with anticipation, LayerZero suddenly announced a month-long witch hunt on May 3rd. This review introduced a brand new "bounty reporting mechanism," including a self-disclosure phase, an official review phase, and a bounty reporting phase. Ultimately, approximately 803,000 addresses were determined to be potential witches, with over 338,000 addresses self-disclosing as witches.

After the airdrop results were announced, some users reported receiving a large amount of ZRO tokens, especially those who held Kanpai Pandas NFTs. This raised questions among some community members about "insider trading". Meanwhile, many regular users expressed dissatisfaction with the airdrop distribution results, believing that the costs invested far exceeded the value of the tokens received.

There is a viewpoint that the fundamental reason for the strong dissatisfaction with the ZRO Airdrop lies in the fact that the project party has broken the balance between VC, the project party, and the "coin-grabbing" users. The project party needs user interaction data to attract VC investment, while VCs need the project party to issue Tokens to cash out. However, "coin-grabbing" users often find themselves in the weakest position in this game.

Despite the controversy surrounding ZRO and the recent ZK Airdrop, participating in airdrops remains a potential way for ordinary users to gain profits, even though the returns are continuously declining. Future airdrop projects worth following include Manta Network, Canto, DappRadar, KelpDAO, and Pendle.

This series of events has prompted the industry to reflect on the current airdrop mechanism and to explore more fair and transparent token distribution models. In the future, how to achieve a new balance among project parties, investors, and ordinary users will become an important challenge facing the Web3 field.