Blast’s $3B Airdrop and Bitcoin’s Mt. Gox Moment

FREE,
FOR
A
FEE:
Token
airdrops
are,
after
all,
free
money
–
one
reason
why
project
teams
might
be
less
sympathetic
to
users
who
complain
that
they
didn’t
get
what
they
thought
they
were
owed.
Now,
the
blockchain
interoperability
project
LayerZero
has
introduced
a
new
twist
to
the
process
–
what
some
observers
are
calling
“pay
to
claim.”
When
LayerZero
Foundation
came
out
last
week
with
the
ZRO
airdrop,
it
forced
users
to
fork
over
a
“proof-of-donation”
before
they
could
claim
the
new
tokens.
As
detailed
by
CoinDesk’s
Shaurya
Malwa,
users
had
to
make
a
donation
of
10
cents
in
USDC
to

Protocol
Guild
–
a
collective
funding
mechanism
for
Ethereum’s
layer-1
research
and
development
maintainers
–
for
each
ZRO
token
they
hoped
to
claim.
In
a

video
address
posted
on
X,
LayerZero
Labs
co-founder
Bryan
Pellegrino
said
that
“users
need
to
do
something
in
order
to
get
something,”
adding
that
the
amount
was
“extremely
small”
and
that
“the
easy
path”
would
have
been
to
“optimize
for
the
least
amount
of
criticism.”
LayerZero
Foundation
said
it
would
match
all
donations
up
to
$10
million.
The
ostensible
rationale?
“By
donating
to
Protocol
Guild,
eligible
recipients
show
long-term
alignment
with
the
LayerZero
protocol
and
a
commitment
to
the
future
of
crypto,”
LayerZero
said
in
an
X
post.
It
goes
without
saying
that
endorsement
of
the
move
was
not
universal:
“If
I’m
at
McDonald’s
and
they
force
me
to
donate
to
get
my
cheeseburger,
do
I
really
care
about
the
kids
or
am
I
just
hungry?”
one
frustrated
poster

wrote
on
X.