ZkSync Airdrop guide

April 02, 2023

Intro

L2 (zero-knowledge, aka ZK) scaling solution developed by Matter Labs (founded 2018) and raised Raised $458M at $2B valuation.

Development began in 2019, 1.0 (Lite) version was released in June 2020, and version 2.0 (zkSync Era, EVM compatible) in October 2022. That brings us to now, March 24 the mainnet Alpha is launched.

zkSync Lite (version 1.0) is still live, ranking just below Loopring (another ZK Rollup), but what we focus on is the zkSync Era (version 2.0), which is being released right now and where we want to secure the airdrop.

Token - Airdrop

Not just zkSync looks very promising in terms of the ETH scalability, but it is yet to release its token.

Thanks to $458M funding, evaluating the project on $2B, and promising that 2/3 of the token will go to the ecosystem, this one might be a juicy airdrop.

Getting started

You can either buy the tokens directly on zkSync, or you can bridge from the ETH chain.

Bridge your tokens

The easiest way to get you going is simply to bridge some of your ETH to zkSync.

You want to spend only what you can lose since this is still a new L2 and there is a huge risk associated with that.

But if you have the option, bridging > 0.1 ETH will put you right on top of ~75% of users, which will remain below 0.1 ETH.

You can use your MetaMask, here:

Or you can create Argent wallet, which is a mobile & browser wallet supporting L2s, and there’s a very simple process to send your ETH directly from MetaMask (srsly, very nice UX!)

You can use my referral link, but not sure if any of us gets something.

Argent / ZigZag - Buy your tokens

ZigZag let you trade on zkSync for 10 cents per trade, which is a very friendly price for a trade and you can generate a lot of activity by simply trading your ETH for USDC or whatever you like to do.

Argent allows you to trade popular tokens directly in the wallet (integration with ZigZag).

Careful, today both support only zkSync Lite (version 1.0), not Era (version 2.0 where we want airdrop). Not sure how the airdrop will be calculated, but I expect soon to see Era on both as well since they’re constantly announcing updates on Era.

So my suggestion is to bridge right now or wait for Era exchanges (see DefiLlama for exchanges you can trust).

SyncSwap - Swap your liquidity

On Era there are many options, which you can find at https://ecosystem.zksync.io/

I’m currently trying a few options, the best looks like https://syncswap.xyz/swap but not confident enough to recommend any, it’s still too early and risky.

I used it to swap 10+ transactions and get myself 1k+ volume. You pay only the gas fee and lose peanuts from your ETH.

You can get some ideas from DefiLlama and TVL. Below is a snapshot taken on the 1st of April.

Maximalize your airdrop

There are not many apps yet, but what is live is listed here: http://ecosystem.zksync.io

You can filter out “Live on Era” to see what is already switched to version 2.0.

To get the most out of the airdrop, you want to create some activity inside the ecosystem, at least 10 transactions, and a volume above $1,000.

You can do this by simply trading/swapping your tokens, or engaging in the early DeFi/NFT ecosystem.

Trade NFTs

https://mintsquare.io/zksync is a good place to start.

Not only you can buy the collections, but also you can mint here whatever you want.

Consider making a few transactions by either minting free collections or swapping the low-valued collections to make 10+ transactions.

Mint NFT collection

This one is a little advanced, but you can create your own collection directly on mintsquare and offer it to the public. If you create a decent volume with your collection, you have a high chance of a good airdrop for your project.

If you don’t have support and don’t expect people will trade some of your NFTs, then this might be a low-value activity.

Crew tasks

https://crew3.xyz/c/zksync offers some easy social tasks you can do to earn EXP for the project.

Since there should be a reward associated with Discord roles, and Crew tasks are giving you Discord roles, it won’t hurt to complete them. Plus it’s a good exercise to understand more about the zkSync. Who knows, maybe we can get some tokens for EXP once launched.

DeFi

Most of the big DeFi protocols are already live on Lite. Balancer, Aave, Lide, 1inch, Sushiswap, … You can get active on the protocols with both Metamask and Argent.

With Era it’s harder and the applications are rather limited right now.

But, as mentioned before, simple swapping for some transactions & volume gives you a good start. I do it in multiple days.

Also, if you want, you can multiply your chances with additional wallets.

So once you find a way that suits you, it’s worth a thought if you can do this with more than just 1 wallet.

My strategy:

1st I bridge ETH to both Metamask and Argent.

On Argent I do Lido staking for the daily rewards on Lite - this should flag me every day with activity. That's all I do on Lite.

Then I’m doing 10+ swaps/trades on https://syncswap.xyz/swap to get the transactions on Era. Also, it gives me a volume of $1k+, that’s usually the baseline for any airdrop you want to get.

I do this with 3 wallets, no need to overcomplicate things.

From the DeFi space, I’m providing some ETH/USDC liquidity as this pair is giving roughly 50% APY today, not bad, we’ll see how this turns once we get higher volumes. I use syncswap - https://syncswap.xyz/pool

Also, once there is a staking protocol live on Era, I’ll stake some pure ETH into it. Today there is none.

Re. NFTs, I bought NFT for 0,08 ETH in pre-sale, who knows, maybe that will be the next hidden gem. I don’t really plan to hold this NFT, but might do a few trades, depending on how the collection will perform.

I completed the Crew tasks (https://crew3.xyz/c/zksync/questboard).

I’m about to launch my collection and do some mints on top of that, just for the fun and experience with zkSync.

Good luck guys!

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