ZKsync showers users with token airdrop: ‘It’s not a financial thing,’ says CEO

Crypto users are set for another big airdrop payout.

ZK Nation, a newly-set up organisation for the purpose of governing and growing the ZKsync protocol, announced Tuesday that the protocol’s ZK token will launch next week.

The ZK token’s market value will likely land in the hundreds of millions once it launches on June 17.

Despite this, Alex Gluchowski, the co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs, emphasised the ZK token’s utility.

“It’s not a financial thing,” he told DL News. “It’s really a governance token.”

Matter Labs is the company behind the ZKsync protocol, which consists of the ZKsync Lite and ZKsync Era blockchains.

‘Wen Airdrop?’

The airdrop, or distribution of tokens to a crypto project’s users, ends what’s been a slow drumbeat of anticipation for the new cryptocurrency over the past year.

The ZKsync protocol aims to speed up and make transactions cheaper on Ethereum.

As opposed to other layer 2 blockchains, it uses zero knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method invented in the 1980s, to bundle transactions together and post them to Ethereum.

While Matter Labs launched the first iteration of ZKsync in 2020, it has yet to have a token. However, in May, ZKsync’s X account announced a new upgrade to the protocol slated for the end of June that would hand over “governance” to the layer 2′s users.

“Wen Airdrop??” read one of the first comments underneath the post.

The Block then reported that the token launch could come as early as the middle of June, citing two sources familiar with the matter and an internal message.

And, on Monday, ZKSync’s X account announced the creation of ZK Nation, an organisation tasked with governing and growing the ZKsync protocol, as well as launching its token.

“Pre-game starts tomorrow,” posted ZKsync’s X account. “Get some rest.”

ZK-nomics

There are 21 billion ZK tokens, with one third reserved for investors and employees of Matter Labs and the ZKsync Foundation, according to a blog post.

The other two thirds are for community members: About 695,232 wallets will receive 17.5% of the token’s supply, 19.9% will go to the ZKsync Foundation, and 29.3% will be set aside for the treasury of what ZK Nation is calling its “Token Assembly.”

That’s akin to a decentralised autonomous organisation that helps govern the protocol.

Gluchowski, the CEO of Matter Labs, told DL News that the airdrop is the only one planned.

He said that the token launch wasn’t a money grab and that Matter Labs had about $200 million in cash.

According to the blog post, investors and employees can’t sell their tokens for one year after the airdrop.

Then, their ability to cash out will follow a three-year release period between June 2025 and June 2028.

“This is a governance token,” Gluchowski said. “But the community will have the power to use it also as a payment means.”

The Matter Labs CEO also said that, following the airdrop, ZKsync community members could vote to add further functionality.