A new trend has emerged in the cryptocurrency space: airdrop farmers are flooding GitHub repositories with comments in hopes of securing tokens from future airdrops, and developers are feeling the strain.
Pseudo, a researcher at Scroll, expressed frustration, urging users not to inundate GitHub with comments solely for farming purposes. The Scroll core team, already stretched thin, finds these actions burdensome.
Airdrop farming is not a novel concept. Since 2020, individuals have sought to exploit systems by engaging in activities that they believe will qualify them for future airdrops. Initially, this primarily involved on-chain actions, such as transactions on blockchain networks.
However, recent airdrops, including Celestia and Starknet, have altered their distribution criteria. Celestia distributed 6% of its supply, with a significant portion allocated to GitHub contributors. Similarly, the Starknet Foundation earmarked approximately 7% of its airdrop for developers who made contributions.
Starknet developers comprised 2% of the total 700 million token airdrop, while Ethereum and open-source developers outside the web3 space received 5%. Eligible contributors were those who made at least three commits to a repository featured in the Electric Capital report for Starknet before Nov. 15, 2023.
An eligible contributor received 1,800 Starknet tokens for a simple spell check, demonstrating the potential value of contributions. This criterion has attracted airdrop hunters to GitHub repositories of projects without tokens.
One strategist cited the Starknet airdrop as justification for contributing to the Scroll GitHub, hoping to increase their chances of receiving tokens from any potential airdrop. They emphasized the importance of open-source contributions in the digital age.
Spamming GitHub comments
Pseudo observed a significant influx of activity on the Scroll GitHub repository over the weekend, with over 1,000 comments flooding in, the majority originating from airdrop farmers. This surge in engagement extends to other repositories as well, such as the main zkSync repositories, where basic requests for integration with other protocols have been made.
While acknowledging that airdrop farmers are part of the crypto community, Pseudo emphasized the importance of contributing based on individual strengths rather than blindly following trends. Despite the spam on GitHub, there are signs of healthy ecosystem growth beyond the platform, with Scroll being recognized as the largest growing rollup according to L2beat. Maintaining a community-first approach, Pseudo stressed that there is ample space for diverse contributions.
To combat spam, projects like Scroll are exploring measures to limit activity in their repositories. Pseudo has advocated for implementing such restrictions, although it has yet to be put into effect. However, distinguishing between genuine contributors and airdrop farmers poses a challenge, especially when the latter utilize longstanding GitHub accounts with a history of comments.
Despite the nuisance posed by spam, there is a silver lining. Some of the comments serve as an opportunity to identify and rectify spelling mistakes. As noted by Synthetix Spartan Council member Millie X, the rise of airdrop farming may inadvertently lead to improved grammar across crypto GitHub repositories.
