LayerZero demands sybil airdrop farmers to self-report

LayerZero, a protocol enabling connections between incompatible blockchains, has given sybil airdrop farmers an opportunity to self-report their addresses by May 17 in exchange for a reduced token allocation.

According to LayerZero, those who decide to come forward will receive 15% of their intended allocation, while those who do not are at risk of receiving “nothing” from the planned token airdrop.

Sybil airdrop farming refers to an ostensibly deceptive practice where individuals engage in Sybil attacks by creating multiple fake identities or accounts to exploit airdrop programs.

A Sybil attack is enacted when an individual creates numerous false accounts to gain an unfair advantage, such as receiving more airdrop tokens than legitimately entitled. This behavior has been deemed unethical for undermining the perceived fairness and security of airdrop programs, although many in the space still use it as a method.

A blog post from LayerZero details how the project plans to address the issue and implement sybil filtering methods used to detect mercenary airdrop farming activity are implemented.

Notably, some of the filtering parameters include minting valueless NFTs and spamming low-value transactions across multiple blockchains to register activity.

Sybil activity, where users adopt tactics such as creating multiple addresses to increase their share of an airdrop, is a significant issue for crypto projects. This is particularly true when an airdrop is anticipated, as user activity often declines once the token distribution occurs, with mercenary farmers moving their funds to projects that have yet to distribute tokens.

“We are giving all sybil users an opportunity to self-report within the next 14 days in return for 15% of their intended allocation, no questions asked,” LayerZero stated in the X post

LayerZero itself has experienced a decline in user activity since announcing its airdrop snapshot. According to data from the protocol’s onchain explorer, daily cross-chain transactions fell from around 300,000 on April 30, the day before the airdrop announcement, to about 150,000 currently, representing a drop of more than 50%.

To counter the mass exit of users post-airdrop, some crypto projects have begun adopting a process of distributing tokens in multiple rounds.

Protocols such as decentralized exchange Jupiter and Ethereum restaking platform EigenLayer have chosen this approach. On this end, speculation has arisen that LayerZero may follow suit, as the team stated that the May 1 snapshot was the first for the airdrop, suggesting the possibility of future snapshots.