LayerZero readies sybil ‘bounty hunting’ effort, spots 800k addresses in airdrop scheme

Interoperability giant LayerZero’s ongoing self-reporting effort to combat Sybil attacks has revealed more than 800,000 sybil addresses.

According to LayerZero, the self-reporting process was carried out in tandem with a rigorous analysis with risk management platform Chaos Labs and blockchain analytics firm Nansen.

Following the review, the platform announced that it had identified 803,093 addresses as potential Sybils, users who create multiple fake accounts to claim more rewards from an airdrop.

In early May, LayerZero revealed a snapshot for its upcoming ZRO token airdrop, which was first announced in December 2023. Shortly after the airdrop teaser, LayerZero Labs co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino expressed concerns about company employees participating in the airdrop. 

On May 7, Pellegrino announced on X that all LayerZero employees were banned from participating in the airdrop, calling it a “fireable offense.”

Furthermore, following the May 1 snapshot, LayerZero started actively identifying Sybil actors. As part of the Sybil hunting initiative, LayerZero implemented the self-reporting mechanism, allowing addresses suspected of Sybil behavior to come forward. 

Each self-reported address was set to receive 15% of its intended token allocation, with the remaining 85% redistributed among qualified users. This strategic distribution was meant to incentivize honest reporting while safeguarding the ecosystem from exploitative behavior.

Initially, over 2 million addresses were flagged as potential Sybils. However, stricter criteria were applied to ensure accuracy and minimize false positives, refining the list to 803,093 addresses. 

According to LayerZero, the results from this phase are preliminary, primarily to exclude large clusters of addresses from eligibility for bounty hunting. The platform also noted that the findings are not definitive. It stated that as the methodology evolves, some addresses might be reassessed and potentially removed from the Sybil list.

The next stage, dubbed Sybil Bounty Hunting, kicks off on May 18. In this phase, LayerZero will invite the community to participate in identifying Sybil addresses, with a clear set of requirements: bounty hunters must report at least 20 addresses, supported by a transparent and robust methodology. 

Successful reports will earn participants a reward of 10% of Sybil’s intended token allocation, granted exclusively to the first eligible reporter of each address. 

The platform has emphasized that the initial list from the self-reporting phase will not undergo updates during the bounty-hunting process, in order to ensure clarity and consistency for participants.