Blast’s recent incident of rug pull may have shaken the confidence of many users who were involved in L2 airdrops. However, there are still many opportunities to participate in airdrops in the L2 space. Bankless introduces 5 L2 projects with potential airdrops and explains why they are worth paying attention to.
Scroll:
Introduction:
Scroll is the 8th largest L2 and the 3rd largest zkEVM L2, with a TVL (Total Value Locked) close to $1 billion. It has experienced a surge of nearly 20% in the past week. Scroll was established in 2021 and was valued at $1.8 billion in 2023. It has received investments from well-known venture capitalists such as Polychain Capital, Bain Capital Crypto, and Sequoia China. Scroll consists of settlement layer, aggregator layer, and verification layer. The settlement layer connects Ethereum and Scroll, ensuring data availability and validating zkEVM proofs. The aggregator layer executes transactions, processes them, and sends them in batches to Ethereum to ensure data availability and validate proofs. The verification layer generates zkEVM proofs to ensure the correctness of L2 transactions. These proofs are handled by provers and coordinators and eventually confirmed on Ethereum.
Reasons to pay attention:
In April, Scroll announced its “Scroll Sessions” reward program, where users can earn Scroll Marks, equivalent to points, through these activities. The program also provides retroactive rewards for users who have deployed assets on Scroll since the launch of the mainnet in October 2023, indicating that they are tracking all activities on the chain. Scroll recently concluded Session Zero, where users were rewarded for bridging assets such as ETH and wstETH using the native bridge or LayerZero bridge. Session One is about to start and may support other assets and methods to earn Marks. Referring to the previous ZKsync airdrop, Scroll is highly likely to be the next top-tier L2 airdrop, and the significant increase in TVL is evidence of this.
Zircuit:
Introduction:
Zircuit is an upcoming zkEVM that uses AI to enhance security and has received support from funds such as Dragonfly, Pantera, and Maelstrom. Zircuit was established in mid-2022 and is currently in the testnet phase. Zircuit stands out because of its Sorter-Level Security (SLS) feature. Unlike other rollups that simply package transactions into blocks, Zircuit’s sorter uses AI to check the security of each transaction before packaging it into a block, looking for potential hacker attacks or vulnerability exploits. If SLS identifies a transaction as malicious, it isolates it and never includes it in a block.
Reasons to pay attention:
To increase TVL before the mainnet launch, Zircuit has launched a rewards program where users can deposit ETH, LST, and LRT into their network. Multiple assets are supported, including liquidity staking tokens like wstETH and mETH, liquidity re-staking tokens like Puffer’s pufETH, Renzo’s ezETH, KelpDAO’s rsETH, and Ethena’s sUSDe synthetic dollars. Each token provides a combination of rewards from Zircuit and related projects. Zircuit has already accumulated over $2.5 billion in staked assets and received over 1000 applications for “Build to Earn” programs.
Reya:
Introduction:
Reya Network is an upcoming L2 for trade optimization, supported by Framework, Coinbase, and Wintermute. Its goal is to enhance market depth by providing shared liquidity for all exchanges operating on L2. Users can provide funds to the liquidity pool through private accounts and earn returns from trading spreads, funding rates, protocol fees, and liquidations. The unique feature of this functionality is that it prevents protocols from competing for liquidity through potentially dilutive reward schemes and instead allows them to tap into the overall liquidity network. Reya aims to achieve a high-performance block confirmation time of 100 milliseconds and can handle up to 30,000 transactions per second to become the preferred destination for on-chain trades.
Reasons to pay attention:
Although no airdrop has been announced officially, Reya has launched a liquidity rewards program where depositors earn points by providing funds to their exchanges with stablecoins. Points programs often indicate potential airdrops, although no timetable has been announced. In addition to deposits, Reya’s flagship perpetual DEX currently allows trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Zora:
Introduction:
Zora Network is an ETH L2 that aims to make NFT circulation more efficient and cost-effective. Zora is built using Optimism’s OP Stack and provides a fast and low-cost network designed specifically for NFTs. As the first NFT-centric L2 using the OP Stack, transactions are confirmed within seconds, and the minting cost is only a few cents. Additionally, Zora returns protocol fees to creators, resulting in $25 million in rewards for artists who have published NFTs on their network. Zora provides creators with a comprehensive toolkit to publish NFTs in various formats, whether they are open collections, curated sets, or 1/1 artworks.
Reasons to pay attention:
Although Zora has not announced an airdrop yet, the launch of their own network suggests that there may be a governance token airdrop in the future. Furthermore, considering their involvement in the Superchain, Zora’s creators may qualify for retroactive rewards from Optimism, similar to the rewards obtained from Airdrop 4.