The long-awaited token airdrop of LayerZero’s interoperability protocol, LayerZero, is now open for withdrawal today. However, just 10 minutes before the token claims were made available, the LayerZero team suddenly announced a new claiming mechanism called “Proof-of-Donation” and plans to donate approximately $18.5 million to the Ethereum development protocol, ProtocolGuild, through this mechanism.
Specifically, when users claim ZRO tokens, they must donate 0.1 USD worth of USDC, USDT, or ETH for each ZRO token received. These donations will be directly given to ProtocolGuild.
This mechanism introduced by LayerZero has sparked strong dissatisfaction within the community, as many people believe that this forced donation is equivalent to a disguised form of taxation.
In response to this, Bryan Pellegrino, the Co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, stated on X that users are not obligated to make donations. If they do not wish to donate, they can choose not to claim ZRO tokens, as he stated, “It’s not something that belongs to you; it’s gifted to you.”
Due to the overwhelming negative feedback received, Bryan Pellegrino later published a tweet on X, providing a detailed explanation of LayerZero’s Proof of Donation mechanism and the logic behind it.
Bryan Pellegrino expressed that the trend of airdrops has completely failed. When he personally received an airdrop from Uniswap, it came as a complete surprise to him, as he only used the protocol because it was useful. He did not go back and use Uniswap a thousand times to try and receive more airdrops, hoping that the protocol would provide him with more tokens.
Furthermore, Bryan Pellegrino pointed out that LayerZero initially had no plans for an airdrop. It was the market’s excessive expectations for airdrops that led to a frenzy of user interactions, forcing the team to decide to conduct the airdrop in the first half of 2024. However, the trend of token airdrops has completely changed, and those who participate solely in the hopes of receiving more are unlikely to be long-term stable users. The tokens allocated to active users will ultimately flow to individuals with financial interests.