Nearly Half Of Airdropped ZkSync Tokens Claimed In Just Two Hours

ZkSync’s airdrop has ignited a flurry of activity just hours after going live.

On June 17, ZkSync Era, a top 10 Layer 2 network by total value locked (TVL), tweeted that its network was suffering degraded performance after launching claims for its long-awaited ZK token.

ZkSync said some of its RPC services may experience degraded performance as a result of the network facing intense load as users rushed to claim their tokens, adding that teams are working to increase RPC capacities.

The project also noted that 45% of the tokens allocated to its airdrop had already been claimed within two hours.

“More than 45% of the airdropped ZK token supply has been claimed by over 225,000 addresses in less than 2 hours,” ZkSync’s ZK Nation Z account posted. “It’s a Monday, don’t you have work?”

ZkSync’s airdrop was among the most highly-anticipated token generation events. Matter Labs, the team behind ZkSync, became the first team to ship a zk-EVM — a Layer 2 network leveraging zero-knowledge proofs and offering Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatibility — with the launch of ZkSync Era in March 2023.

The deployment came just one day after Arbitrum, the top L2 by TVL, launched its token, fanning the flames of airdrop speculation. Airdrop hunters have helped to propel Era to become a leading L2, with the network currently ranking ninth by TVL with $776.4 million and ninth by throughput with 6.9 transactions per second (TPS) over the past 24 hours.

Matter Labs also launched the ZkSync Lite Layer 2 network in June 2020, which focuses on providing fast and cheap token transfers. Lite currently ranks 23rd among L2s by TVL $86 million, down from an all-time high of $177 million in April 2022, and 32nd by throughput with just 0.25 TPS.

Despite ZkSync Lite’s lengthy tenure, only Lite users who also transferred assets to ZkSync Era were eligible for the ZK token drop.

According to ZkSync’s airdrop FAQ page, users needed to meet at least one eligibility criteria in addition to transferring assets on the Era in order to qualify for the drop. The criteria include trading at least 10 different tokens on Era-based DEXes, interacting with at least 10 non-token smart contracts, holding at least one Libertas Omnibus NFT, being active on Lite for at least three months prior to Era’s launch, and donating to at least one Gitcoin funding round hosted in ZkSync Lite.

ZkSync announced that it would airdrop 17.5% of the token’s supply to roughly 695,000 wallets last week. Wallets would receive at least 450 tokens and 100,000 at maximum. Wallets qualifying for less than 450 tokens would see their allocation recycled back into the airdrop pool.

ZK is currently trading at a $927 million market cap after sinking 20% since launch, according to CoinGecko. Its capitalization also equates to a fully-diluted valuation of nearly $5.3 billion.