The ZKsync Association will airdrop 3.675 billion ZK tokens to early users and adopters of Ethereum’s second-layer network ZKsync next week.
This represents 17.5% of the total supply of 21 billion ZK tokens, ZKsync said on Tuesday. ZKsync said this will be a one-time airdrop and users can claim the tokens starting next week until January 3, 2025. Contributors will begin claiming on June 24.
Another 49.1% of the token supply will be distributed through ecosystem initiatives, with 17.2% going to investors and 16.1% to the Matter Labs team.
“Granting more tokens in the airdrop than the Matter Labs team and investors was more than a symbolic decision for the community,” the ZKsync Association said in a statement. “When the ZKsync governance system launches in the coming weeks, the community will have the largest liquid token supply to guide protocol governance upgrades.”
ZKsync Releases Long-Awaited Airdrop Details
The project said that ZKsync screened a total of 695,232 wallets to participate in the airdrop. The eligibility and allocation of the airdrop were based on a snapshot of ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite activity at 0:00 UTC on March 24, 2024, which was the first anniversary of the ZKsync Era mainnet launch.
17.5% of the ZK airdrop is split between two types of community members - users (89%) and contributors (11%). Users are those who transact on ZKsync and reach a certain level of activity. Contributors are individuals, developers, researchers, communities, and companies that contribute to the ZKsync ecosystem and protocol through development, advocacy, or education, regardless of their network activity.
17.5% initial community airdrop details. Image: ZKsync.
ZKsync says the remainder of the community allocation will be distributed over time through the Ecosystem Program (managed by the ZKsync Foundation) and the ZK Nation governance process to support an ever-growing ecosystem as new users join the chain.
Just under half of the supply has been allocated to what the project calls its experimental community. This includes wallets that received Degen and Bonsai airdrops for activity on decentralized social networks Farcaster and Lens. It also includes wallets that played Crypto the Game, which was recently acquired by Uniswap Labs, as well as NFT projects Pudgy Penguins and Milady Maker.
ZK token distribution breakdown. Image: ZKsync.
The remaining supply is allocated to investors and the Matter Labs team. Their ZK tokens are locked up for the first year and then unlocked over a three-year period from June 2025 to June 2028.
The announcement confirms The Block’s report last month that ZKsync plans to airdrop tokens in mid-June, bringing the total supply to 21 billion. At the same time, ZKsync’s branding has also changed from zkSync to ZKsync.
