The Day Has Come - Introducing the ZK Token

Working towards the zkSync airdrop for months and the day has come! Introducing the ZK Token was posted and the claim/check page is now live! It is a great day for DeFi Summer, and a moral boost for airdrop hunters!

ZK is the Endgame. Not only the endgame to verifiably scale Ethereum, but also the endgame to restore our right to personal sovereignty. And $ZK is the most expected token of 2024! Everyone hustled on zkSync for months and worked hard to tick boxes! As usual, there's nothing 100% sure in the Cryptoverse! Don't take anything for granted!

As a pioneering ZK rollup and Ethereum’s first ever zkEVM chain, ZKsync is architecting the future of verifiable, permissionless blockchains. The recent upgrades created an ever-expanding network of interconnected ZK chains that can horizontally scale to billions. Blockchain at it's best!

To ensure ZKsync remains trustless and censorship-resistant, the protocol must be decentralized and governed by a diverse group of passionate, dedicated community members. Transferring a meaningful amount of authority to a real and engaged community is absolutely crucial to establish decentralized governance. This is when $ZK comes ... to link all the big players into a true decentralized entity!

The ZK token is a protocol token that allows token holders to introduce and vote on protocol upgrades and pay for network fees using ZKsync’s native account abstraction. A total of 17.5% of the total supply will be airdropped to eligible wallets. The rest will be distributed over time, through ecosystem initiatives, managed by the ZKsync Foundation.

A 3,675,000,000 airdrop will be shared to 695,232 wallets, as the largest distribution of tokens to users amongst major rollups. Airdropped tokens do not have any vesting or lock up periods, and are fully liquid on day one. This amount is larger than the locked allocations for the Matter Labs team (16.1%) and it's investors (17.2%).

When the ZKsync governance system launches in the coming weeks, the community will have the largest supply of liquid tokens to direct protocol governance upgrades. My wallet was one of those 695,232 wallets to receive a well-designed airdrop reward.

Sybil detection often cuts out real users with arbitrary filters and the ZK airdrop focused on identifying real users using a human-first approach. Real people tend to be risk-on, spend time onchain, ape in, transact, try new protocols, and hold speculative assets. I am a degen bro and got a nice slice of the cake to claim! There are 6184 $ZK allocated for me and my on-chain effort!

Eligibility and allocations for the airdrop were based on a snapshot of activity on ZKsync Era and ZKsync Lite taken on March 24th, 2024 at 0:00 UTC, marking the one-year anniversary of ZKsync Era mainnet launch.

I ticked the boxes for three criteria, by holding the Libertas Omnibus NFT and exploring protocols. I didn't used paymaster but I am sure I traded 10 ERC20 tokens! Whatever! Community members can check their eligibility at claim.zknation.io

With ZKsync’s native account abstraction, claiming your ZK is gas free. Once claimed, token holders can participate in the governance of the ZKsync protocol and either self-delegate, or delegate their token voting rights to a representative they believe will continue advancing personal freedom for all.

I told you how to WAGMI since June 2023, as I started exploring zkSync Lite. Played with stablecoins on ZigZag and tried to gain some profit from trading. Not a trader by definition, and maybe this was the reason why I ended up with losses instead of improvements. I had to create my own NFT, and Pinata was the tool that helped me.

Few good trades later I managed to reduce the damage to only 3 dollars. I swapped the remaining $ZZ and $USDC into ETH and used the ZigZag bridge to send half of the amount to zkSync Era. I made over 10 transactions on Lite, and the journey had to continue on the Era chain.

Discovered ZKitty NFTs and the Element marketplace, and even minted my own NFT collections!You know what else is cool on Element? My ZK Pool Tractors! This AI generated collection has 24 unique tractors, which I minted as a celebration for my first year as a pooler! There are some listed on the market at a very affordable prize, good enough to add extra transactions towards the airdrop count.

I used Maverick and other protocols to swap on zkSync, and also bought $MAV and locked it for one year! What if it was a way to tick boxes for two airdrops? Grinding on Layer3 made it possible. Claimed the daily off-chain GM and increased myr streak for achievements, completed quests and minted CUBEs!

This helped me to interact with plethora of protocols and also be eligible for $L3 tokens. Layer3 is now helping me to get more points on Mode, which is a nice tripple-dip. Keep hustling and keep hunting those airdrops crypto bro! This is the way!