LayerZero Fought the Sybils and Airdropped Its Token. Did the Team Win?

LayerZero’s token ZRO is now live. Founder Bryan Pellegrino delves into all the controversies, challenges and criticisms of its anti-Sybil campaign—and its requirement of a donation to the Protocol Guild.

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LayerZero’s token claims went live on Thursday, and as with every recent airdrop, there was plenty of controversy.

In this episode, Bryan Pellegrino, cofounder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, joined to discuss their ambitious anti-Sybil campaign and the subsequent token distribution. He delved into the challenges of ensuring genuine user participation, the decision to offer a self-report option for Sybil attackers, and the complexities imposed by industrial-grade farmers. Bryan shared what he would have done differently and why a mandatory donation to Protocol Guild was imposed.

Also, are airdrops dead? How can the industry improve this not-so-effective distribution method?

Show highlights:

Why LayerZero launched an anti-Sybil campaign with its airdrop, and what challenges they faced in ensuring genuine user participation
Why LayerZero offered a self-report option for Sybil attackers, and how this strategy revealed both the complexities and the creativity within the crypto community
How the anti-Sybil campaign uncovered over a million fraudulent accounts
What Bryan would have done differently in their campaign
What alternative methods, such as KYC and proof-of-humanity protocols, LayerZero could have used for their anti-Sybil campaign
How LayerZero navigated the cat-and-mouse game with industrial airdrop farmers
Why they decided to impose a donation to Protocol Guild to claim the ZRO token
What caused the dramatic drop in LayerZero's activity post-announcement of their anti-Sybil campaign, and why the team is optimistic despite the decline
LayerZero's plans for future airdrops
What Bryan thinks the future holds for airdrops in crypto, and how the current broken system can be improved to achieve better distribution and user engagement

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Guest

Bryan Pellegrino, cofounder and CEO of LayerZero Labs

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.

HOST

Laura Shin

Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze” (Public Affairs, 2022). Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had more than 15 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.