LayerZero's token issuance is imminent, and before the airdrop arrives, is the largest "witch hunt" in history coming first?
"Self-exposure" + "Judgment" + "Mutual biting", how many of the 6 million addresses will ultimately remain?Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily
On May 2, the cross-chain interoperability protocol LayerZero officially announced on X that the first snapshot (Snapshot #1) has been completed, and more information will be released soon.
As one of the most anticipated potential airdrop projects in the community, this brief official announcement from LayerZero was interpreted by the community as "the airdrop snapshot has been completed, something big is really coming."
On May 3, LayerZero's official account again previewed an important announcement to be released that evening, to "demonstrate ongoing trust in community members." However, just as the community speculated whether LayerZero would announce detailed airdrop rules, the final announcement from LayerZero felt like a heavy blow to all users------ tokens will indeed be distributed, but multiple rounds of witch screening activities are required first.
Airdrop Background: Six Million Users
According to the description in the official documentation, a key factor that LayerZero needs to consider when formulating the token distribution plan is how to identify the highest quality user cluster. In LayerZero's view, the highest quality users should be those with the most "persistence," and "persistence" is defined as those users who are most likely to continue using LayerZero in the future or maintain their past usage habits.
On the evening of May 2, LayerZero co-founder Bryan Pellegrino responded to the community on X, stating that the actual total number of users covered by LayerZero across all networks is approximately 5.8 million addresses; while last night's official announcement revealed that LayerZero currently has nearly 6 million addresses.
Considering past airdrop cases in the industry, over a million addresses can be considered a super large scale. Therefore, for LayerZero, it is necessary to reduce the airdrop scope through mechanism design or witch screening to ensure that tokens are distributed to potential users in a way that aligns with the project's expectations.
Witch Judgement Rules
In the official materials released by LayerZero, specific screening details have not yet been provided (possibly to prevent witches from self-checking, which could affect the "self-exposure" phase mentioned later). Instead, they have listed several possible interactive behaviors that may be considered witch-like through examples, and Bryan has provided some additional explanations on certain cases on his personal X account.
In short, interactive behaviors that may lead to an address being judged as a witch include:
- Acting as a single person or entity while using dozens, hundreds, or thousands of addresses for batch interactions;
- Minting a "worthless" NFT to facilitate cross-chain transfers of NFTs;
- Using common "witch volume brushing" applications such as Merkly, L2 Pass, L2 Marathon, etc.;
- Transferring very small amounts (e.g., $0.01) back and forth between different chains to leave interaction records on multiple networks;
- If you think you are a witch, then you are likely a witch.
Regarding the use of tools like Merkly, some users have questioned whether this could lead to large-scale "false positives." Bryan responded, stating: "If you are a genuine user who used Merkly to reduce gas fees, then you may not be judged as a witch. However, if you are just using Merkly to transfer assets back and forth, then you might be a witch."
Witch Screening Rounds
According to LayerZero's official disclosure, this witch cleansing activity will be conducted in three rounds.
The first round is the "self-exposure" phase, which will last for 14 days. Users who believe they are suspected witches can "self-expose" through the window provided by LayerZero during this phase to retain 15% of the airdrop allocation.
It is worth mentioning that to facilitate studios' "self-exposure," LayerZero has also "thoughtfully" provided an API tool for large-scale address submissions.
The second phase is the "judgment" phase, during which LayerZero will conduct witch screening according to specific rules. The screening results will be announced on May 18, and addresses identified during this phase will not receive any airdrop allocation.
The third phase is the "mutual biting" phase, which will last from May 18 to May 31. LayerZero encourages community users to report witch behaviors to each other, and successful reporters can receive 10% of the airdrop allocation from the reported address.
The Largest Witch Cleansing Activity in History?
Based on the schedule disclosed by LayerZero, it is highly likely that the governance token of the protocol will officially be issued only after the "mutual biting" phase ends on May 31, so the expected token issuance date should be in June.
For users anticipating the LayerZero airdrop, they will need to endure a full month of witch cleansing activities before receiving the final rewards. Considering the enormous user scale of LayerZero itself, along with the reusability of the witch label across different projects, what LayerZero is initiating may not only be the largest-scale witch cleansing activity in history, but its screening results may also have far-reaching impacts on potential airdrops of other projects in the future.
