LayerZero Relaunches "Sybil Hunting" Campaign on May 28

In a recent announcement, LayerZero Labs has decided to restart its "Sybil hunting" campaign after a temporary halt, requiring participants to deposit 0.5 ETH to mitigate spam.

LayerZero Relaunches "Sybil Hunting" Campaign on May 28. Image: The Block

As reported by Coin68, on the morning of May 18, the cross-chain project LayerZero initiated phase 2 of its "Sybil hunting" campaign and received significant community response.

However, the joy was short-lived as LayerZero announced on May 20 the temporary suspension of the "Sybil hunting" campaign due to spamming. Nevertheless, after a 5-day pause, LayerZero has announced plans to relaunch this campaign on the new Commonwealth platform, accompanied by a new bonding mechanism.

Sybil bounty submissions are re-opening shortly under a new process on Commonwealth that will require a bond.

Submission Criteria
We are implementing a bonding mechanism into sybil bounty reporting, which means only addresses that post a bond are eligible to submit a report on… pic.twitter.com/wsawzewlR2— LayerZero Labs (@LayerZero_Labs) May 25, 2024

Users interested in participating in the Sybil hunt are now required to deposit 0.5 ETH into a designated wallet to qualify for reporting and receive 10% of the token allocation from identified fraudulent addresses. The aim is to minimize unwanted spam and prevent legitimate accounts from being mistaken for Sybil accounts.

This 0.5 ETH "bond" will be refunded after the TGE takes place, but only to those hunters who submit fully compliant reports as per the guidelines.

Users will not receive a refund if their report is found to exhibit spam-like behavior, plagiarized content, or any signs of fraud.

LayerZero also referenced a tweet by CEO Bryan Pellegrino highlighting an exemplary bounty report and emphasizing the power of decentralized efforts.

I'd like to highlight an example of a great bounty report and why I think it's so powerful to allow open researchers to participate. Have said it many times but people amaze me, decentralized efforts so superhuman pic.twitter.com/VK87Ij9Y1i— Bryan Pellegrino (臭企鹅) (@PrimordialAA) May 24, 2024

Specifically, a comprehensive Sybil report would include on-chain analysis, clear rationale for choosing the reported wallets, identifying valid points and discrepancies suspected within the wallets.

Example of a valid Sybil report. Source: Twitter - @PrimordialAA

The campaign's timeline upon commencement will be divided into three main phases:

9:00 AM on May 25 (Vietnam time): Hunters can begin depositing ETH to initiate their bonds.

7:00 AM on May 28 (Vietnam time): Provide the link for bond holders to participate in reporting Sybil.

7:00 AM on May 30 (Vietnam time): Cease acceptance of ETH deposits and conclude the reporting deadline.

As of the current moment, 20.5 ETH has been deposited into the designated wallet, equivalent to 41 individuals who have registered to become Sybil Hunters in this campaign relaunch.

Address of LayerZero's ETH deposit wallet, screenshot taken at 04:15 PM on May 25, 2024

The 0.5 ETH deposit is a substantial amount for users wishing to earn a 10% Sybil bounty reward, balancing the risk of losing the entire deposit if their report does not meet the requirements.

With tight deadlines and stricter conditions, doubts have arisen about the actual effectiveness of LayerZero's Sybil hunting campaign, questioning whether it is merely consuming time and effort without yielding significant results.

LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino has also acknowledged that they cannot completely solve the Sybil problem, despite earlier confidence in their ability to do so.

It appears the project has been overwhelmed by a large amount of spam and sophisticated tactics, such as bad actors continuously transferring stablecoins into a fixed wallet address to provide a basis for Sybil accusations, exceeding the project's control capabilities.