ZKsync Announces Historic Airdrop with 3.6 Billion Tokens Distributed

Matter Labs, creators of ZKsync, announced on Tuesday that the community distribution process for the new ZK tokens will begin next week.

The Ethereum Layer 2 service provider will distribute 3.675 billion tokens, representing 17.5% of the total token supply through airdrops, to approximately 695,232 eligible wallets.

ZK Airdrop coming next week

In the team version Announce ZK will have a total supply of approximately 21 billion tokens. According to a Matter Labs statement, the 17.5% airdrop makes this the most comprehensive token distribution from the Layer 2 network.

The report also indicates that 89% of the tokens dropped will go to a group classified as users, while 11% will be allocated to contributors. Users are people who have met the minimum threshold for transaction activity by the snapshot date, March 24.

On the other hand, contributors, including developers, researchers, community, individuals and companies, have been actively involved in transforming ZKsnyc into the second language giant it is today. While users will claim the tokens starting next week, shareholders will have to wait for at least one more token and start submitting claims from June 24.

ZKSync has introduced a wallet eligibility checker where individuals can check if they are eligible for airdrops. According to the documentation, each token dropped is instantly unlocked and can be transferred immediately without the need for a vesting period.

Interestingly, 66% of the total allocation of ZK tokens is allocated to the community, while only 33% is allocated to investors and teams. While talking about their decision to dedicate more to the community, the ZKsync Association said:

“Giving more tokens in an airdrop than to the Matter Labs team and investors is more than just a token decision for the community… The community will have the largest stock of liquid tokens to guide protocol governance upgrades.”

The distribution of team tokens will begin in June 2025 and last for a four-year vesting period ending in 2028. The decision to delay the team token unlock dates by one year comes just months after another competitor, StarkWare, was forced to postpone the team unlock date following online criticism.

Real icons for real people

According to ZkSync's statement, this airdrop focuses on rewarding real people while liquidating bots and sybil wallets. The network uses several criteria to discover and reward wallets from real people with real on-chain activity.

When asked if there would be selling pressure due to a large amount of tokens being immediately unlocked on the airdrop, Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski said: “People are free to dump their tokens.”

Alex said they want token holders to participate in governance. If no one wants it, they can sell it.