War Against Sybils: How to Secure Your Airdrop Eligibility?

Are Sybils Good or Bad Phenomenon?

Generally, they are considered harmful. An excess of sybils devalues the actions of real users by overshadowing their authentic contributions with fake activity. The disappointment among real users can cause them to leave, draining the project of real user participation. Long-term Sybil attacks can severely harm a project's vibrancy, reputation, and potential for success. These urge teams to implement strong security measures to protect project integrity.

Alternatively, some argue that sybils perform beneficial testing on networks or protocols and thus merit rewards. This perspective, however, often originates from the sybils themselves and frankly, doesn't withstand scrutiny. Real users get to test a product much better and can also provide feedback.

Reduced Sybil Numbers Can Be Beneficial for All

Nevertheless, projects are interested in a moderate number of sybils, as those provide desirable metrics of on-chain activity that can later be shown to investors. This, in turn, can bring in additional funding, which can also benefit real users. Therefore, in theory, it is possible to develop a system of mutually beneficial existence between real users, sybils and the project team. But the balance will be very fragile.

The problem here lies in the fact that the number of sybils is growing exponentially, and the methods of dealing with them quickly become obsolete as sybils adapt. Meanwhile, the number of genuine users is growing too slowly. Therefore, the crypto space needs to be cleaned up to benefit all, even sybils themselves.

In order to illustrate the issue, we can refer to the zkSync case, since it is one of the most anticipated and overfarmed projects. Recently, Trusta Labs introduced its zkSync Airdrop Allocation Simulation Checker based on the points system that Arbitrum used when conducting its airdrop. It turns out that if there had been a snapshot on April 24, there would have been about 4 million eligible addresses among the 6.5 million that transacted with zkSync. It is uncertain which system zkSync will adopt, but it is certain that competition for airdrops has increased 6–7 times.

How Projects Tend to Solve the Sybil Problem?

There are two main pathways: the creation of on-chain reputation institutions and good old KYC. 

List of on-chain identity projects: Trusta Labs, Nomis, Ethereum Attestation Service, Idena, RubyScore, 0xScore, Orange.

List of KYC-oriented attestations: Coinbase Identity, Binance Account Bounded (BAB) token, Holonym, zkPass, Galxe Passport, Civic, BrightID, and more. 

Gitcoin Passport as an indicator of coming changes

In mid-April, Gitcoin Passport launched its stamp and score weight changes, basically completely redesigning their model. All easy-to-get stamps have either been removed (like Twitter) or the points for them have been lowered (like Snapshot). At the same time, stamps for passing KYC (Coinbase and Holonym) became 16 points each. Existing on-chain models for Ethereum mainnet and zkSync have also been completely rebuilt, and it has become more difficult to get points for them.

This resulted in many zkSync top wallet holders receiving a minimum score for the associated passport stamp. The exact scoring model is unknown, but apparently excessive online activity does not correspond to real user behavior, according to the Gitcoin team. These innovations caused a storm of user outrage, and Gitcoin partially stepped down by changing the zkSync stamp. However, there will be no rollbacks to the old system; Gitcoin has set a course to combine KYC and on-chain reputation. Now it has become very difficult to get the desired 20 points without passing KYC.

Changes to the Gitcoin Passport are a key benchmark for where the fight against sibilants is headed. Most people will realize this when it's too late.

Sybil Bounty Hunting

The recent anty-Sybil campaign announced by LayerZero has made quite a sensation in the world of airdrop hunting. Realizing the fact that their products are being overfarmed by industrial farms, the CEO of LayerZero, Brian Pelegrino, announced previously unprecedented steps to hunt down sybils.

Namely, he first encouraged sybils to surrender for 15% of the allocation and then announced a bounty on their heads in the form of 10% of the allocation of the captured sybil. Things started to pay off even before the campaign officially launched, with users rushing to report the top L0 wallets as well as the wallets of public farmers. This raised a number of problems.

The first problem is on the surface: where is the line between a sybil with hundreds or thousands of wallets and a simple farmer with one wallet? LayerZero themselves do not draw this line, judging by their criteria. The second issue is much more global, and the consequences are not yet predictable. This is mass whistleblowing and, in some cases, blackmail. Let's see how it will affect the crypto industry as time passes.

Is It Possible to Defeat Sybils?

Sibyl breeding has led to qualification requirements changing from airdrop to airdrop. It's not only about tightening the interaction criteria with the protocol, high on-chain reputation, or KYC requirements; there are already precedents of a project giving a large allocation not for genuine interaction but rather for something completely unpredictable. For instance, Wormhole awarded 8000 $W tokens each to over 1000 Monad Discord members unexpectedly. 

Sybil-fighters will try hard, but the truth is: it's impossible to defeat sibyls completely. They will survive and adapt, as long as it is profitable. Almost anything can be bought on OTC markets, from Twitter and Discord accounts to KYC and biometrics for most services. On-chain verification methods are also far from perfect; automation and AI can make a fake account nearly indistinguishable from a real user. And in this drophunting game, sybils would always outplay a genuine user because they are mostly richer.

Why Projects Are Doomed to Conduct Generous Airdrops?

Criteria that are too unclear and unfair will provoke resentment and a mass user exodus. This is a critical mistake, ask Starknet, after a few months, the CEO recognized this. So projects will be forced to work towards a fair distribution.

Airdrops being too stingy will also provoke a storm of outrage. Recently, Renzo, facing user opposition to the details of tokenomics, was forced to increase airdrop allocation from 10% to 12% as well as provide token unlocking on the TGE. In other words, projects will have to conduct generous airdrop allocations like Arbitrum if they want to assure themselves of user love.

If a project’s team tries too hard to filter out sybils, they will also filter out real users and face the above-mentioned consequences. So, sibyls won’t be left out of the bounty. But not all of them.

How to Become a Better Drophunter?

Here are the general advices:

• Study the current airdrop meta. Find out which projects have recently airdropped their tokens, and which actions did the favor.

• Explore services and tools that deal with on-chain analysis and KYC. You can look for their mutual Twitter followings with projects you want to farm.

• Know your competitors. Find out how many drophunters are there and how you can stand out amongst them. Some projects aren’t even worth attention, because they are overfarmed. 

• Diversify. Farm several projects in parallel on the same wallets; the effect will be cumulative.

• Wallet quality beats wallet quantity. 

Actual tips:

• Start using on-chain reputation services like Trusta and Nomis. It actually helps to improve your wallet’s record.

• Better obtain Galxe and Gitcoin passports. The first one is easier to get, so there are many sybils holding it already. But the second one tends to become very important after the recent update to the stamp system.

• Make multiple transactions on Ethereum mainnet while gwei is low on weekend mornings. After the Dencun update, the transaction cost on rollups has decreased tenfold, decreasing the drophunting entry threshold as well.

• Explore young and promising non-EVM ecosystems (Solana doesn't count). There is less competition there, as separate wallets are required, etc. You can try Aptos, Sui and Stacks.

• A big family is great; get a big family to help you with KYC!

Output

As drophunting dominates the scene, the importance of distinguishing between genuine user engagement and manipulative Sibyl activity becomes paramount. Projects are now employing a combination of on-chain reputation systems and KYC measures to combat this issue. Some will try Sybil bounty hunting. Understanding and adapting to these measures is essential for users aiming to navigate this evolving landscape successfully and become eligible for upcoming airdrops.

It is not possible to completely overcome sybils definitively. Instead of fighting all sybils, projects should focus on fighting cheap, software-automated wallets. By mastering how to filter them out, they will be able to distribute airdrops more properly. Thus, 70–80% of sybil wallets will be gone, and the crypto space will get healthier.