Individual Sets Up DEX to Hunt zkSync Airdrop Using 22,000 Wallets
Overview
A single individual has been discovered creating nearly 22,000 zkSync wallets to "hunt airdrops," raising suspicions within the crypto community about the identity and methods of the owner.
Discovery and Method
On September 11, 2023, the Twitter account @lingland09 exposed a cluster of 21,877 zkSync wallets originating from a single person.
Detailed Findings
The owner of these 21,877 zkSync wallets established a decentralized exchange (DEX) project and created a token named Gemstone (GEM). This individual then added liquidity worth over 80 ETH to their DEX, which had closed-source code, meaning no other users could participate in transactions.
The individual coded nearly 22,000 zkSync wallets to whitelist for receiving the token and trading on their own DEX. The goal was to swap GEM tokens across these wallets to generate a large number of transactions, thus "hunting" for an airdrop from zkSync, a promising layer-2 Ethereum project.
By optimizing slippage and gas costs, the person completed around 10 transactions worth $10,000 for each zkSync wallet while only spending about $1.5 - $2 in ETH fees per wallet.
Community Reaction
The crypto community, especially on Twitter, considered this approach as "professional retroactive farming," but it was noted that such an extensive sybil attack might result in the person being blacklisted by zkSync developers, Matter Labs, and thus barred from receiving any potential airdrop rewards.
zkSync Project Background
zkSync is a layer-2 solution under the ZK-Rollups category on Ethereum, developed by Matter Labs and supported by major investors like a16z, OKX, Crypto.com, Bybit, and ConsenSys, with over $458 million in funding.
There is widespread anticipation of a significant airdrop event from zkSync, similar to what competitors Arbitrum and OP Mainnet have previously done, as a way to rejuvenate market activity post Bitcoin ETF fluctuations.
Despite no official confirmation from zkSync regarding an airdrop, many investors remain hopeful, especially after Binance announced on September 7, 2023, the completion of ETH deposit and withdrawal integration on the zkSync Era network.
This incident underscores the lengths to which some individuals will go to maximize their returns in the crypto space, even if it means deploying a sybil attack at such a massive scale. While innovative, it raises questions about the integrity and fairness of airdrop mechanisms and the security measures in place to counteract such exploits.
