Dialogue with Dragonfly Partners: Airdrop Controversy Caused by Celebrity Meme and ZK

Compiled edited by TechFlow

Panelists:

Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner, Dragonfly

Tom Schmidt, General Partner, Dragonfly

Robert Leshner, CEO and Co-Founder, Superstate

Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner, Robot Ventures

Podcast source: Unchained

$Mother, Hamster Kombat, zkSync – The Chopping Block

Air date: June 15, 2024

Highlights from this podcast

• Crypto Market Sentiment: Discuss the latest market trends and how inflation data affects the community.

• Memecions and celebrities: An analysis of Iggy Azaleas $Mother and the phenomenon of celebrity-launched memecions.

• Emerging Memecions: Insights into new memecions, including the problem of fake and hacked accounts.

• Tap-to-Earn Games: Overview of the rapid growth of simple point-and-click games like Hamster Kombat.

• Airdrop Controversy: Explore recent controversies, particularly those involving ZK SYNC and Layer 0, and the challenges of Sybil attacks.

• Future airdrop strategies: Discussing the evolution and need for clear, ungameable metrics.

Current Market Sentiment

Robert mentioned that recent market sentiment can be inferred from price changes. He pointed out that the encouraging inflation data released today (Wednesday) has made the market very optimistic that the Federal Reserve may lower interest rates this year, thereby getting the market back on track.

However, this optimism lasted only a few hours before a sharp sell-off in the market caused prices to fall back. Eventually, market sentiment returned to a relatively calm and wait-and-see state.

Celebrity memecoins and market influence

$Mother

Tarun pointed out that the biggest news on crypto Twitter today was Iggy Azalea promoting her memecoin.

Haseeb quoted Iggy Azalea in an interview, questioned Vitaliks views on charities and hospitals, and suggested that Vitalik profited from gas fees.

Haseeb gave background on Iggy Azalea and her Memecoin “Mother,” noting that she is now more of an influencer and has clashed with some prominent figures in the crypto community.

A meme of Iggy Azalea and Vitalik was shown, in which Vitalik was depicted as a baby being breastfed by Iggy Azalea, implying that she is his mother.

Market Impact

Tarun mentioned that the Memecoin market was not calm this week, and many celebrities began to get involved in Memecoin.

Haseeb explained that Hulk Hogans Memecoin was a hack, and pointed out that the hacker is now making a profit by launching fake Memecoins.

He mentioned that Andrew Tate launched a Memecoin called Daddy to compete with Iggy Azaleas Memecoin Mother.

Haseeb stressed that the current Memecoin market has reached a peak in celebrity participation, but believes that there may be higher peaks in the future.

Haseeb discussed the future of celebrity monetization through Memecoin and other means, noting that celebrity tokens could be a positive-sum game in some cases.

He mentioned the difference between celebrity tokens and traditional product endorsements, arguing that celebrity tokens may create value in the early stages, but as the market becomes saturated, this value will be eroded.

Robert believes that the most valuable way is to monetize celebrities through new businesses (such as wine brands, vitamin water, headphones, etc.) that are legal and create value.

He believes Memecoin could potentially create positive wealth if it becomes a breakout success, but generally it is a zero-sum game.

Robert mentioned Doge’s unique value proposition, that Doge is the first ironic crypto asset that attempts to be a copycat blockchain like Bitcoin or Litecoin and other Bitcoin forks, giving it greater durability in the history of cryptocurrencies, a uniqueness that other celebrity tokens lack.

Robert discussed the saturation of the Memecoin market, arguing that market demand is limited and will eventually reach a peak.

Tom believes that every market trend will eventually reach saturation, and the current Memecoin market is no exception.

He mentioned the difference between celebrity tokens and traditional product endorsements, arguing that Memecoin may create value in the early stages, but that value will be eroded as the market becomes saturated.

Tarun believes that the core truth about Memecoin is that they tried to simplify the revenue sharing agreement but did not actually solve the problem.

He discusses the uniqueness of Pump.fun as the first successful token launchpad project. Pump.fun is easy to use and fun. Tom believes it is closer to a true viral consumer application than many blockchain gaming projects.

Robert Pump.fun was the first Launchpad-like project, and it did a great job.

Click to earn money game: Hamster Kombat vs Notcoin

Haseeb mentioned two blockchain gaming projects worth discussing: Notcoin and Hamster Combat.

Haseeb introduced that Hamster Combat is a Telegram-based click-to-earn game where players get feedback and points by clicking on the hamster picture on the screen.

Hamster Combat already has over 100 million users, with more daily active users than Ethereum.

Haseeb believes that the success of blockchain games may be seen as a social problem because these games can be addictive and a waste of time. Haseeb talked about the simplicity and virality of these games, arguing that they meet peoples need for digital growth.

Robert believes that the reason click-to-earn games are successful is that they are simple and easy to play, suitable for people who want to get rewarded for light work.

Robert mentioned the short-term appeal of these games, arguing that players will lose interest after a while.

Robert went on to discuss the economic cycle of these games, arguing that once the airdrop ends, players may lose the motivation to continue playing. He also pointed out that these games are very simple in design and require almost no technical innovation.

Tarun mentioned that the popularity of click-to-earn games may be a reaction to the proliferation of complex games and AI. He believes the success of these simple games is related to their low computing requirements and ease of use.

Tom thinks the popularity of click-to-earn games may be a reaction to high-end games, with people preferring simple games that don’t require much investment.

Tom mentioned the cyclical nature of culture and believed that the current trend is to return to simplicity. He believes that the popularity of these games reflects peoples demand for digital growth and may be a manifestation of some kind of social dissatisfaction.

Airdrop Controversy

Airdrop Meta (zkSync LayerZero)

Haseeb discussed the recent trend of airdrops, noting that many of the big ones have been accompanied by controversy and drama. He mentioned the ZKSync and LayerZero airdrops.

ZKSync is a zero-knowledge rollup that announced an airdrop of 17.5% of the total supply to users. Despite the large size of the airdrop, only about 11% of users were eligible, which caused a lot of anger, especially from farming-type users.

LayerZero’s airdrop strategy is to allow users to self-report. If they self-report as a robot, they can get 15% of the original airdrop. If they successfully report others, the reporter can get 10% of the airdrop of the reported person. This method has also triggered different reactions.

Haseeb mentioned that recent airdrops have not received uniformly positive feedback, believing this to be a widespread problem.

Tarun believes that the expectations for airdrops continue to increase over time, making it increasingly difficult to satisfy everyone. He believes that the expectations for airdrops are set by the first project to adopt a novel mechanism, and subsequent projects need to pay more premium to meet these expectations.

Tom agrees that expectations for airdrops are growing and that this is a widespread problem.

The Challenge of a Fair Airdrop

Haseeb mentioned that there has been almost no major airdrop in the last six months that satisfied everyone.

Tom believes that fairness and transparency of airdrops are an important issue when facing a large number of users and potential bots. He mentioned that the GMV airdrop is one of the few recent examples that did not cause a lot of negative reactions.

Tarun mentioned that Celestia’s airdrop was an exception, where they distributed airdrops to developers and researchers, an approach that was emulated by other projects.

Tarun mentioned a phenomenon in behavioral economics, that once expectations are set, subsequent expectations will become higher and higher.

He explained how this phenomenon manifests itself, for example, in the expectation that some people will receive similar rewards in other projects because they received large rewards in Celestia’s airdrop.

Tarun believes that this rising expectation is similar to rising salary expectations, which are difficult to lower once expectations are set.

Airdrop Industrialization

Haseeb mentioned the issue of the industrialization of airdrops, which he believes may be one of the reasons for the increase in airdrop controversies.

Six months ago, the scale of airdrop industry was far less than it is today. At that time, although there were airdrop hunters, their number and tools were far less than today.

He pointed out that now many users in emerging markets can easily participate in airdrops through various guides and tools, which makes the industrialization of airdrops more common.

Haseeb believes that for some projects, such as decentralized exchanges (Dex) or projects that need to provide liquidity, measuring user behavior is relatively simple and therefore less controversial.

For some unclear projects, such as Layer 1 protocols or Celestia, users are unclear about what to do to receive the airdrop, which increases uncertainty and controversy.

Tarun agreed with Haseebs point of view, mentioning that Celestias airdrop was also used by industrialized famers. He mentioned some memes that reflected users dissatisfaction with airdrops.

Tom believes that some airdrops that require users to invest more skin in the game, such as providing capital or paying transaction fees, are less controversial.

He mentioned a meme in ZKSyncs Discord that reflected the strong dissatisfaction of Indian users.

Tarun believes that the entire ecosystem is a bit out of control, and users are manipulating indicators in various ways to obtain airdrop rewards.

He believes that the current airdrop system is too complex and vulnerable to attack, and is not an effective way to distribute tokens.

Tarun predicts that the trend of airdrops may completely change in the future as the current system is not ideal.

Future Airdrop Strategy

Haseeb pointed out that the current airdrop mechanism lacks confrontation and it is difficult to effectively distinguish between real users and fake accounts (Sibyl attacks). As the airdrop hunters technology improves, the effectiveness of anti-Sibyl technology becomes worse, the probability of accidentally hurting real users increases, and the error rate also rises.

He believes that the project has condoned the existence of airdrop hunters to some extent because it helps improve the projects indicators.

There is a Faustian deal between airdrop hunters and project owners, that is, project owners allow airdrop hunters to exist in order to improve short-term indicators, but in the long run, this will lead to more user dissatisfaction.

Haseeb pointed out that the trend may change in the future. He believes that the project party may make things clear and visible earlier. For example, the project party may tell users in advance what they will reward and choose some indicators that are difficult to manipulate, such as liquidity. This can avoid the dissatisfaction and manipulation problems caused by the surprise factor. Another possibility is that the cat and mouse game between airdrop hunters and project parties will continue forever, with both sides constantly trying to defeat each others Sibyl attacks and anti-Sibyl measures.

Robert believes that the success of Proof of Work in Bitcoin lies in its close connection with the core goals of the project. However, the current airdrop mechanism is similar to fake work and does not provide real value to the project, but is more for optical effects. Future airdrop mechanisms need to better link work with token distribution to increase the success rate of projects.

Tarun discussed the differences between Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS), arguing that PoS is inferior to PoW in some ways. The airdrop mechanism needs to be more random and continuous to reduce the problem of expected value management. He also mentioned that fraud issues in other fields such as games and Spotify have not been completely solved, and airdrops are no exception.

The role of KYC in airdrops

Haseeb suggested that in the future, full KYC may be required to obtain airdrops, as some regions are already excluded (such as Luhansk, Crimea, the United States, India, etc.). If these restrictions are already being made, then full KYC may be the next step.

Tarun disagrees with this view, arguing that KYC cannot scale and will lead to asset distribution being more concentrated in the hands of those who can pass KYC rather than being widely distributed. He also points out that many airdrop hunters may not be able to pass KYC.

Haseeb further explained that the current anti-Sibyl attack measures (i.e. preventing one person from creating multiple fake accounts) are actually a crappy version of KYC that uses various signals to try to verify whether the user is a real person.

Tom believes that returning to linear airdrops (i.e., distribution based on some difficult-to-manipulate metric) may be a more practical solution.

Haseeb mentioned that there may be some zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology in the future that can perform verification without revealing user KYC information.

Tarun believes that this technology may be available in the future, but it is not mature enough yet. And even if it is available, many people will still be excluded.

Tarun worries that if KYC is adopted, it may be easier for the government to consider it as a security, which will increase the complexity and compliance costs.

This article is sourced from the internet: Dialogue with Dragonfly Partners: Airdrop Controversy Caused by Celebrity Meme and ZK

Related: Cobie: When low-circulation, high-FDV tokens are rampant, the rising profits have already been privately divided

Original author: Cobie Original translation: TechFlow This post will discuss the topic of new token launches, focusing on common questions and misunderstandings about new tokens in the market, which are often referred to as low circulation, high FDV. Before I begin – if you are confused by what I am saying in this post, I wrote an article in 2021 called Market Cap and the Unlocked Myth that might help you. As always, please remember: I am not a financial advisor, I am a biased and flawed human being, I have been brainwashed, I am an idiot, I am past my mental prime and into my twilight years, and I stumble through the world trying to make sense of it all, with little success. I am actually a participant in…