Airdrop Farmers Blitz GitHub Following Starknet, Celestia Distribution News

Crypto News- Airdrop farmers are causing quite a stir on GitHub lately, much to the frustration of developers. One researcher from Scroll, who goes by the name Pseudo, expressed their exasperation, pleading, ‘Please don’t submit GitHub issues just to farm tokens. The Scroll core team is already stretched thin; let’s not make their lives harder.’

This phenomenon of airdrop farming is not a novel one. Since 2020, when several major projects unexpectedly distributed governance tokens to early users, people have been trying various tactics to position themselves for future airdrops. Initially, it revolved around on-chain activities like transactions on blockchain networks.

Airdrop Farmers Blitz GitHub Following Starknet, Celestia Distribution News

However, recent airdrops such as Celestia and Starknet have altered their distribution criteria. For instance, Celestia allocated 6% of its supply for airdrops, with a significant portion going to GitHub contributors. Similarly, the Starknet Foundation earmarked about 7% of its tokens for contributing developers, with claims set to commence on Feb. 20. Remarkably, a simple spell check earned one eligible contributor 1,800 Starknet tokens from a single comment, even before it was merged.

With these new criteria in place, airdrop hunters are now targeting GitHub repositories of projects without tokens. One strategist justified contributing to Scroll’s GitHub in hopes of securing an extra share of any potential airdrop, emphasizing the importance of open-source contributions in the digital age.

However, this influx of airdrop farming activity has inundated GitHub repositories. Pseudo revealed that the Scroll repository received over 1,000 comments over the weekend, the majority originating from airdrop farmers. Even repositories like zkSync have seen a surge in comments, with individuals making basic requests such as integration with other protocols.

Despite the annoyance, Pseudo maintains a community-first approach, acknowledging the importance of healthy ecosystem growth beyond GitHub. To curb spam, temporary submission limits have been imposed, although distinguishing genuine contributors from airdrop farmers with established GitHub accounts remains a challenge.

Yet, amidst the frustration, there’s a silver lining. As noted by Synthetix Spartan Council member Millie X, the new airdrop farming trend might lead to improved grammar across crypto GitHub repos. After all, every cloud has a silver lining.