Analysis: Is the zkSync NFT airdrop equivalent to the qualifications for a token airdrop?

Author: Trusta Labs

On July 15, zkSync officially announced an NFT airdrop for NFT players within its ecosystem, with the first batch of 10,000 addresses receiving the airdropped NFTs. As a highly anticipated leading layer 2, this move by zkSync has sparked heated discussions in the community. Many are speculating whether receiving this NFT is equivalent to qualifying for zkSync's token airdrop.

To answer this question, Trusta Labs conducted an analysis of the on-chain interaction behaviors of the 10,000 users who received NFTs in the zkSync Era:

Interaction Behavior Analysis

Number of Transactions

The average number of transactions per user across the zkSync Era network is 21. Among the users receiving this NFT airdrop: 70% have a cumulative transaction count of >=20, which is above the average. 15% of the airdrop accounts have a cumulative transaction count of <=10, with 690 users having even <=4 transactions.

Transaction Amount

More than half of the users across the zkSync Era network have a cumulative transaction amount of 44U. Among the users receiving this NFT airdrop: 15.4% of addresses have a transaction amount <=50U, with even 530 addresses having <=10U (far below the average).

Gas Fee Contribution

The median gas fee contribution across the zkSync Era network is 0.002eth. Among the users receiving this NFT airdrop: 12.3% have gas fee consumption below the median.

Active Weeks

The average active weeks for addresses across the zkSync Era network is 3.6 weeks. Among the airdrop users: 25% have active weeks not exceeding 3, with 700 being active for only one week.

Special Cases

1. "0" Transaction "Winning" Addresses

We found the following three addresses that have no interaction records in the zkSync Era but still received the airdrop. According to the interaction requirements for the top 100 NFTs, these three addresses clearly do not qualify. It is speculated that they may be official test addresses, and we suggest that @zksync provide clarification to avoid misunderstandings.

Address One: 0x200ae0ab4e65bf0a80748cf4ebce814667513ba5 (https://explorer.zksync.io/address/0x200ae0ab4e65bf0a80748cf4ebce814667513ba5)

Address Two: 0xa0fdb2f6cf2bf189db73b294a60088fef751bfcd (https://explorer.zksync.io/address/0xa0fdb2f6cf2bf189db73b294a60088fef751bfcd)

Address Three: 0xe8bd3908c645dab3ced6b0ca75304ca3a31276c0 (https://explorer.zksync.io/address/0xe8bd3908c645dab3ced6b0ca75304ca3a31276c0)

2. Inactive Addresses with Only 1-2 Transactions

In this airdrop, there are 118 addresses that historically have only 1 transaction, and fortunately, all of them are NFT transactions. 135 addresses have a historical cumulative transaction count of only 2.

Typical Address: Had 1 transaction only 3 months ago but still lucked out with the NFT airdrop because the address is the special number 0x0.

(https://explorer.zksync.io/address/0x023444e85c568c16a4fc75707d62b75e1fef4494)

3. Fund Concentration Behavior Among Airdrop Addresses

Among the 10,000 addresses that received the NFT airdrop, there is also fund concentration behavior between different addresses, possibly controlled by the same entity:

Cluster One: 0x01bffc8dc41e26d98c3cef8b045726726134d1d3 transferred funds to 7 addresses, all of which received this NFT airdrop. 0x01bffc8dc41e26d98c3cef8b045726726134d1d3, 0x0221bde0421fb6728565362c7a07139b8b8a547f, 0x012d3e07a0985fead3929636087b2f3879f77b9e, 0x0b4b156a1fd4b3c0ea779fcb0359cedf36345ab6, 0x09f43533e974c590ef827a038635066a21bfadd9, 0x09b713ea5899cf2f224d5fefc7701bf00b73cf9f, 0x0b65d471f86830d33afa0b66028605a483bfdced, 0x0b40e7f11a7a6a4c0dc3ee739f0b06d9f05f9587

Cluster Two: Five addresses all received this NFT airdrop and have fund transactions between each other. 0x00e73720d841de3884a6074e6aaf506fd8f15851, 0x076e9da02e0767c2bd40adec8779a30f14aa7a8c, 0x0a6dc610a7cd0142d662c14c416bfae4bb231a10, 0x0c25fef7a6c39696727650c4d9ab9367e25dd296, 0x0d68dc12a1ce249c12d5edeaf1d953508c232da6

Witch Behavior Analysis

For the 10,000 addresses that received the airdrop, monitoring through two different methods revealed witch behavior:

TrustScan Witch Detection

Using TrustaScan to scan the airdrop addresses for behavior on the mainnet and Arbitrum, 1,408 witch addresses were identified (witch rate >14%).

1. Witch Address One: 0x014ddd8696562c105b6013b078a45a9fed0bcd75

This address is part of a large chain of 74 addresses in a funding network, with mainnet funding occurring within 3.5 hours on January 4, 2022, and fund transfers happening on the Arbitrum network within 7.8 hours on April 6, 2023.

2. Witch Address Two: 0x0d8969db749fa22c8107ff3871e30b2da246984c

This address appears multiple times among clustered witch addresses, frequently appearing in star-shaped funding networks on the Ethereum mainnet (receiving funds from one batch of addresses and then pooling funds to another batch). On Arbitrum, it appeared three times among a group of addresses involved in batch operations. 668 addresses had all transactions on zkSync Era occur within 48 hours.

1. Witch Address One: 0x05a450c625f31eaf736b69c7f05a9fb89db87fb0

（https://www.oklink.com/cn/zksync/address/0x05a450c625f31eaf736b69c7f05a9fb89db87fb0）

This address conducted 104 transactions within 48 hours, repeatedly depositing and withdrawing the same amount, with a consistent interval of 9 seconds between operations, highly suspected to be a script-operated witch address.

2. Witch Address Two: 0x06d7101af6e75716b6d2ccbbbd6b95902ea555c7

（https://www.oklink.com/zksync/address/0x06d7101af6e75716b6d2ccbbbd6b95902ea555c7）

This address conducted 97 transactions within 48 hours, repeatedly depositing and withdrawing the same amount, also highly suspected to be script-operated.

3. Low-Value User: 0x0b93c68d71c807303caecacbcfec018270c6bf3

（https://www.oklink.com/zksync/address/0x0b93c68d71c807303caecacbcfec018270c6bf3b）

This address's entire activity on zkSync Era consists of 34 transactions within 48 hours, all with amounts approximately equal to 0, indicating worthless transactions.

Summary

1. We found that the filtering rules for this round of zkSync airdrop addresses are simplistic and do not consider interaction value and activity levels. Many official airdrop addresses have a general contribution to zkSync Era (transaction count, amount, gas fee, and active time contributions are below average, or exhibit obvious witch behavior). The airdrop merely encourages users to participate in ecological NFT projects, so receiving the NFT airdrop does not necessarily equate to future token airdrop eligibility. On the other hand, it is speculated that zkSync may consider the diversity of ecological contributions in addition to common metrics like transaction count and amount for user rewards and airdrop rules in the future.
2. Trusta will soon launch the KYA (Know Your Account) user on-chain interaction and value scoring product for zkSync, which will comprehensively assess user value from multiple dimensions such as frequency, amount, loyalty, diversity, and identity rights, ranking all participating users and guiding them to safely interact with popular and high-potential projects on zkSync Era, while integrating the unique TrustScan witch risk analysis feature to help users with risk warnings. All users are welcome to try it out.