Scroll community hits back at the layer 2′s second attempt to launch a loyalty scheme

After Scroll’s first attempt to launch a loyalty campaign backfired in February, the layer 2 network is back with a second attempt.

But many DeFi users are raising doubts after the blockchain announced Scroll Sessions earlier this week in a bid to reward its community for participation and engagement in the Scroll ecosystem.

“I’m personally not too happy that they’re going the same route as Manta Paradigm, Blast, and now also Linea; incentivising bridging assets into the chain,” CC2, a pseudonymous trader known for his serial airdrop farming, told DL News.

Scroll announced the scheme on Wednesday. It resembles a points programme, a popular way for crypto projects to lure deposits by hinting that users will get airdropped valuable tokens in the future.

Although DeFi users have piled into points programmes, there are growing signs of fatigue. Similar programmes have received backlash from the DeFi community in recent months.

Layer 2 Manta Pacific launched a points campaign in February, rewarding users who transferred assets to the blockchain. But the rewards were underwhelming and caused many to withdraw their deposits at the first opportunity.

DeFi users have also criticised Linea, another layer 2 network, for launching multiple months-long points campaigns incentivising activity and deposits on the blockchain.

Scroll has $186 million worth of deposits, a 7% increase over the past 24 hours.

Another Scroll campaign

In February, Scroll launched a campaign on Galxe, a network popular with projects running airdrop campaigns.

The Scroll community roundly criticised the decision, accusing Scroll of using the campaign to artificially manufacture activity on the blockchain.

Scroll suspended its February campaign hours after it was announced.

“We appreciate and respect your comments and will continue to incorporate them to continue scaling Scroll while keeping the community at the centre,” Scroll said in an X post at the time

Now many worry that the Scroll Sessions campaign suffers from the same issues community members criticised the Galxe campaign for.

“Another layer 2 chain turning into a quest chain,” CryptoTelugu, an X user with 102,000 followers who posts about crypto airdrops, said in response to the Scroll Sessions announcement. “Any plans to delete this post like you did with the previous quest post?”

But there’s a reason why Scroll has decided to return to the idea of a points programme, despite the backlash.

“In the past, airdrops had a surprise factor to them, and they were all but guaranteed,” CC2 said. “Nowadays, airdrops are very rarely fully retroactive, and projects play into it given how popular this particular niche has become.”

By running points programmes instead of rewarding users retroactively, crypto projects can entice more users looking for airdrops and squeeze more deposits and activity from them.

From the project’s perspective, this is desirable because it boosts activity on the blockchain. But with more participants, individual users often stand to receive a smaller slice of potential airdrops.

This is making airdrops a more effective marketing tool for projects, but worse for users looking for a payout, CC2 said.

Scroll vs the airdrop hunters

Scroll has previously suffered from airdrop hunters spamming the project’s GitHub repository with low-quality contributions, causing the team to spend valuable time filtering out the spam.

Crypto projects, including Celestia and Starknet, have previously rewarded those who contributed to those project’s GitHub repositories with token airdrops, encouraging copycat behaviour.

By launching Scroll Sessions, Scroll may also be hoping to alleviate similar problems by presenting its community with a clearly defined way to earn credit for their activity.

However, by potentially solving this problem, Scroll is testing the patience of its community.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.