LayerZero’s ZRO Token Gets A Rough Start With Rising Discontent In The Community: Can It Recover Soon?

• LayerZero’s ZRO token listed on Binance amongst other exchanges amid rising discontent in the community.

LayerZero (ZRO) recently began distributing its ZRO tokens via an airdrop, with major crypto exchanges announcing their listings.

However, the excitement surrounding these listings was tempered by frustration over the airdrop rewards, which many participants found disappointing.

New Airdrop In Town

For context, LayerZero is  a cross-chain interoperability protocol facilitating seamless dApp functionality across blockchains and is in an expansionary phase.

As part of this growth strategy, LayerZero recently distributed its native ZRO tokens through an airdrop. This token distribution coincided with major crypto exchanges, Binance and Upbit, announcing their listings of ZRO.

#Binance will list @LayerZero_Labs $ZRO with Seed Tag applied.

https://t.co/ABwKVzmICh pic.twitter.com/2UV3S6UqoZ

— Binance (@binance) June 20, 2024

While the exchange listings signaled wider accessibility and potentially increased token value, the airdrop rewards themselves fell short of many participants’ expectations. 

This disappointment hindered the excitement surrounding the listings.

To understand the context, exchange listings are significant for a token’s price. By listing a token, exchanges expose it to a broader audience of traders, often leading to increased demand and price appreciation.

However, in LayerZero’s case, the airdrop became a point of contention.

On 19th June, LayerZero unveiled its airdrop eligibility checker, allowing users to view their allocated ZRO amount. Unfortunately, many users discovered allocations significantly lower than anticipated.

Additionally, claiming the airdrop required a $0.10 fee, further dampening enthusiasm.

The airdrop criteria itself drew criticism for favoring holders of specific NFTs, such as Pudgy Penguins and Kanpai Pandas, over users with high transaction volumes or those providing liquidity through Stargate Finance.

This approach left a significant portion of DeFi users and airdrop farmers feeling cheated, having expected more substantial rewards.

Technical issues further affected the airdrop process. Some users reported problems with the mandatory $0.10 claim fee transaction. LayerZero acknowledged these issues and assured users that corrective measures had been taken.

The first message on the Internet was intended to be "LOGIN," but it crashed while sending and only sent "LO." When deciding what our first message would be on LayerZero, we thought it was only fitting to finish what the first Internet started by completing its message. Thus our… https://t.co/541IGDmg81

— raz (@ryanzarick) June 20, 2024

Price Plummets

The ZRO Claim airdrop, targeting a wide audience of 1.28 million wallets, recently distributed 8.5% of its total community allocation of 23.8%.

This initial distribution represents just a slice of the pie, with the remaining tokens planned for disbursement over the next three years.

At press time, ZRO was trading at $3.19 and its price had declined 21.84% in the last 24 hours which had caused further FUD in the market.