I got sybil-flagged
I farmed the STRK airdrop with 10 wallets but only got airdropped for 2. The other 8 wallets met the criteria though, so I think it was mostly because I used layerswap to bridge funds from the same EVM address to multiple starknet addresses and from multiple EVM addresses to the same starknet address. I thought laywerswap was like a mixer and the sending and receiving addresses won’t get linked, an idea I got from reading discord messages but never investigated. This oversight cost me dearly: 4+ months of farming yielded only 1500 STRK tokens. I could’ve gotten at least 6700 if I approached the farming operation with love and care. But it takes a non-typical mind to enjoy the process of active airdrop farming. I haven’t met anyone that enjoy doing it. Oh, did I not mention that my EVM addresses are likely clustered too? Because I used layerswap to move funds across wallets and between chains (mainnet, zkSync, linea, scroll, and polygon zkEVM). These addresses all have decent ages, good amount of on-chain activities and volume, ENS domains, and nice social profiles. They could get me a 5-figure airdrop from zkSync alone if not cross-contaminated. But too late now and I can only hope after some time, new chains and protocols will view them as “isolated” again1.
You don’t want to repeat the same mistake I made.
Should you farm airdrops?
If you are reading this article, you are probably not a whale, not OG farmer, not a high net worth individual, not a dev building a web3 startup, not a trader, not a VC, not a hedge fund partner, not an influencer, and not someone that farms with bots. You’re probably like me, just a pleb, trying to make it. Let me tell you four TRUTHs:
Crypto is almost a zero sum game and the game for us plebs is hard because of the Matthew effect.
Airdrop farming is the easiest and least risky way to make $$$ with a little capital. My friend cidix calls airdrop farming the biggest +EV play. It doesn’t require special knowledge or skills. By setting up things correctly and being careful, you can significantly reduce the risk of getting sybil flagged. By treating every url as a scam and using a burner wallet and letting others claim first, you can greatly reduce the risk of getting your wallet drained. And you only need $100 to $200 per wallet to see good returns.
You can make money (as much as 5 figures for one airdrop) and lose time farming airdrops. But you can also lose both money and time if you are not careful.
Airdrop farming is mechanical, boring, repetitive, and soul-sucking. It requires patience because it takes time for teams to build things. For example, people have been farming zkSync since 2021, and zkSync hasn’t dropped a token as of Feb 28, 2024. That’s 2~3 years!
If you are new to airdrop farming, you want to have a realistic expectation. I think people that have been farming since 2021 have already been and will continue to be rewarded handsomely in 2024. People started after the ARB airdrop will be rewarded decently. And people that just start now will get much less on average. But if you believe crypto will be around for another 20 years, you can start today and get rewarded big time in a year or two or three, assuming you stay vigilant throughout the entire time and never cross-contaminate your wallets. Finally, airdrop farming is a good way to discover new web3 projects and interact with dApps on chain. You will gain knowledge and skills that will accelerate your crypto journey.
How to avoid sybil detection?
Enough of me talking. Time for you to do some work. This section contains detailed instructions on how to set things up correctly. Please follow along. You don’t need to finish in one session. Use this section as a reference and revisit it when you need to.
The best setup
After my airdrop wallets got sybil-flagged by the starknet team, I asked my friend dtd for advice on the best setup, and let me paraphrase what he said:
Say you have a EVM address. You can use it to fund one and only one address on every non-EVM chain. For example, you can use it to fund one Solana address, one Aptos address, one Sui address, and etc. via on-chain bridges. These addresses are linked once the funding transaction is done, and it’s perfectly fine. Group and track these addresses under a common name, say Socrates, as they now belong to the same cohort.
Now you need to have one dedicated CEX address for all your addresses in the same cohort. Say you have two cohorts: Socrates and Plato, you’d then need to have two CEX addresses, one for Socrates and one for Plato. The CEX addresses are useful to move funds BETWEEN Socrates and Plato wallet addresses.
Let's say you need to move funds from Socrates EVM to Socrates Solana, you can do it on-chain via a bridge. No need to use a CEX. CEX is required to keep Socrates and Plato isolated if you want to move funds between Socrates EVM and Plato EVM or between Socrates EVM and Plato Solana.
I hope it gives you an idea of how to set things up. Now I will write down a step-by-step checklist for you. As long as you follow this list, you will be fine.
Open an account and KYC at one or two 1st-tier centralized exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken). You will use them as your main gateway to onramp (and offramp) large amounts of money to (and from) crypto land. Don’t keep funds on these CEXes though.
Open chrome and create a new profile. Say you name your profile Socrates. Create a brand new gmail to go with it. This is important.
Open an account at some 2nd-tier centralized exchanges using the new gmail. Do not KYC. You will use them to move funds between airdrop wallets and perhaps dump airdrop tokens. For example, I’m using both MEXC and BINGX as each supports several different chains. Once again, absolutely do NOT keep funds on these CEXes.
Install Rabby (EVM), Phantom (Solana), Keplr (Cosmos), Sui (Sui), and Petra (Aptos) wallet extensions on the Socrates chrome browser. Create a new address for each wallet extension. Write down the seed phrases. These addresses belong to cohort Socrates. Track them in a google sheet.
Get a CEX deposit address for each cohort.
Some CEXes allow you to generate new addresses for a certain chain and asset. Use this feature and add the CEX deposit addresses to the spreadsheet to keep things tracked. For example, you can generate new EVM (Ethereum and L2s) deposit addresses for ETH and USDC on Coinbase. One thing: do NOT send USDC to Coinbase ETH deposit addresses or ETH to USDC deposit addresses. Coinbase’s UI also warns you about it. However, you can send USDC to Coinbase SOL deposit addresses, despite the UI says no. I tested it twice and received both times. This is handy because Coinbase doesn’t support generation of new USDC deposit addresses on Solana. It does allow to generate new SOL deposit addresses.
Some CEXes do not support new deposit address generation. You will have to open a new account for each cohort using the email you created in step 2. For example, if you plan to use MEXC or BINGX, you will need to open one account for Socrates and one account for plato. Do it separately on their respective chrome browser profiles, i.e., create Socrates MEXC account with Socrates gmail on Socrates chrome browser, and Plato MEXC account with Plato gmail on Plato chrome browser. This is the easiest way to keep all Socrates addresses separated from all plato addresses.
It’s best if you use gmail because you can use the “login via google” feature without creating a password. But if you are doing ten airdrop wallets, you’ll need ten gmails, which require ten phone numbers in theory (and 3 to 5 in practice) for text verification before a gmail account can be created. Yes, Google makes it increasingly difficult to open gmail accounts. You can use textverified for text verification. It supports gmail ($1 per phone number), discord (75c), and many others.
Once you have everything set up, deposit USD to your Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken account, buy USDC or ETH or other crypto, and send them to your airdrop wallets2. You won’t get sybil-detected by withdrawing crypto from a CEX3 to multiple airdrop wallet addresses. But you will get sybil-flagged if you send crypto from multiple airdrop wallets to the same CEX deposit address. So don’t ever do it.
Once you have crypto on chain, say 1ETH on Socrates Arbitrum, you can bridge 0.2 ETH to Socrates zkSync, and that’s perfectly fine. But if you bridge to Plato zkSync on chain, you will run the risk of having either the Socrates or the Plato addresses filtered out for airdrop. So don’t do it. The safe way is to first send to your CEX account and withdraw to the Plato address. For example, you want to
send 0.2 ETH from Socrates Arbitrum to Socrates BINGX ETH Arbitrum deposit address, and then
withdraw 0.2 ETH from Socrates BINGX to Plato zkSync address.
How to approach airdrop farming?
Now you have the best setup. Where should you begin? There are ecosystem airdrops and protocol specific airdrops. Some people raise money to build a chain, and when they release a token, that’s ecosystem airdrop. Famous examples include the Arbitrum and Starknet airdrops. Other people raise money to build a protocol/project/dApp on a chain, and when they drop a token, that’s protocol specific airdrop. Good examples include the ENS, paraswap, dydx, Jito, and Jup airdrops. The rule of thumb is to farm something that got more funding and is not farmed by many. By and large, ecosystems raise more money than dApps, so you probably want to start farming ecosystem airdrops. For example, zkSync, Linea, Scroll, Blast, Mode, and etc. Honestly, there are too many airdrop opportunities right now and it’s overwhelming. Don’t farm every single one of them. You must prioritize. I primarily hear about new airdrop farming opportunities in Taiki’s discord group.
Outro
I’m tired boss.
Many airdrop farmers have said it. I’m looking forward to hearing you utter it too. Airdrop farming is a grind and there’s nothing inspiring about it. Good luck.
Some people say it’s possible since chains and protocols may only go back X months in time when detecting sybil behaviors. But nobody really knows.
Coinbase enforces a 7-day wait period before you can withdraw crypto to wallets.
We usually don’t have control over CEX withdraw addresses anyway.
Great info, as usual. keep them coming!