Ethereum Layer 2 network ZKSync announced on Tuesday (11th) the details of the distribution and airdrop of its protocol token ZK, with 17.5% of the total token supply set to be airdropped to early users and adopters of ZKSync next week.
According to the announcement from ZK Nation, the governance system of ZKSync, the total supply of ZK tokens is 21 billion, with 3.675 billion tokens to be distributed through a “one-time airdrop” to 695,232 eligible wallets. ZKSync stated that the eligibility and distribution of the airdrop are based on snapshots taken of ZKSync Era and ZKSync Lite activities on March 24, 2024 at 8:00 AM Taiwan time, in commemoration of the first anniversary of the ZKSync Era mainnet launch.
ZKSync community members can check their eligibility on the official claiming page and start claiming tokens from next week (deadline on January 3, 2025). Eligible GitHub developers and ZKSync GitHub Discussion Helpers must link their wallet address to their account by June 25, 0:00 Central European Summer Time in order to claim tokens. External projects, Protocol Guild, and ZKSync native project contributors will be able to start claiming from June 24.
In terms of token distribution, 66.7% of the total ZK token supply is allocated to the community, with the remaining 49.17% of token supply, apart from the 17.5% used for the airdrop, to be distributed through ecosystem initiatives.
Additionally, 33.3% of the total ZK supply will be allocated to investors (17.2%) and the Matter Labs team (16.1%), with these tokens being locked for the first year and then unlocked over three years (from June 2025 to June 2028).
It is worth noting that the airdropped tokens will not have any vesting or lock-up period and will have “full liquidity from day one”. When asked if this might lead to selling pressure, Matter Labs founder and CEO Alex Gluchowski stated in an interview with The Block, “People are free to do whatever they want with their tokens.”
Gluchowski described this as a community governance airdrop, saying, “So we hope that most recipients will participate in governance, delegate their tokens, and become active members of the community,” or let the tokens fall into the hands of those who truly care about the protocol.
Gluchowski emphasized that two-thirds of the distribution will flow to the community, not to the team and investors, to argue that “the community is everything” for ZKSync.
