Arbitrum, Ethereum’s layer 2 scaling solution, announced an airdrop of its ARB governance token on March 16, with eligible recipients expected to receive the token by March 23. The hype surrounding its airdrop has now helped another layer 2 solution, zkSync, to see significant week-over-week growth.
ZkSync is another Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, supporting non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and atomic swaps and transfers of Ether and ERC-20 tokens in the Ethereum network.
Over 39,000 addresses have transferred more than $871 million into zkSync over the past seven days, according to on-chain analytics firm Nansen. The number of addresses connected to zkSync increased 5x in the last week. After the Arbitrum airdrop, zkSync and StarkNet are considered to be the most potentially valuable upcoming airdrops. On March 17, nearly 5,000 people deposited over 536 ETH using the zkSync bridge, and nearly 3,000 users deposited over 234 ETH using the StarkNet bridge.
Although zkSync has neither a native token nor announced any airdrops, the enthusiasm surrounding the Arbitrum airdrop has many backers believing they will be rewarded in the near future. The hype surrounding the airdrop comes as scammers have attempted multiple false and scam airdrops using the Arbitrum brand. A crypto airdrop is a publicity tool for a crypto project to create hype around the project. The crypto projects behind these airdrops often deposit digital tokens directly as gifts into the wallets of active blockchain community members. Many of these airdrops have specific preset eligibility criteria that reward users for spreading awareness of the project.
Airdrops have been popular since the early days of the crypto ecosystem, with the first being in 2014. The project has recently relaxed its marketing strategy due to regulatory scrutiny. Not all cryptocurrency airdrops are created equal due to a variety of factors, such as the people behind the project and the project's use case. However, Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync are some early layer-2 solutions with mature track records. This attracted more traders to the Arbitrum airdrop, as it could prove to be more valuable than the usual cryptocurrency airdrops.
