The total amount of funds bridged to zkSync reached $115 million within 10 days of the public mainnet launch as users rushed to farm the airdrop of the Ethereum rollup’s expected native token, according to L2BEAT data.
The zkSync era mainnet was launched one day after the March 24 Arbitrum airdrop. The median airdrop for eligible wallets was 1,250 ARB, earning its owners around $1,500 in free money. As users rushed to farm the next airdrop, zkSync has emerged as one of the most popular airdrop plays for the market.
The new zero-knowledge proof (ZK) based layer-2 is also giving an opportunity for developers to establish an economic moat within the fresh ecosystem by gaining a first-mover advantage. Moreover, these projects also become eligible for an expected airdrop of the platform’s native token, similar to Arbitrum.
DeFi liquidity on zkSync skyrockets
The total value locked in DeFi applications surged to $50 million on April 4 led by deposits across decentralized exchanges and derivatives trading platforms.
More than 43% of zkSync deposits of $115 million have been added as liquidity across DeFi platforms on the blockchain.
The top four DEX commands 95% of the total DeFi TVL on zkSynch Era.
SyncSwap is the top decentralized exchange with $25 million total liquidity locked (TVL), representing 50% of the total value in DeFi protocols. The next three largest DeFi protocols on there are also decentralized exchanges, including Mute with a TVL of $12.4 million, SpaceFi with $5.8 million and GemSwap with $4.4 million.
Ecosystem token prices surge
The prices of zkSync ecosystem tokens have also skyrocketed thanks to the mainnet launch and growing hype around the airdrop narrative.
GemSwap’s native token ZGEM jumped from $0.26 to a high of $2.59, a 10X rise within a week of the token’s launch on March 28, according to CoinGecko data.
On-chain trade raised $700,000 in a public funding round between March 10 and March 17, at a price of $0.15 per OT token. OT was last trading at $0.91 and reached a peak of $1.60 on April 1.
Related: A beginner's guide to the zkSync ecosystem
Similarly, SpaceFi’s token price has increased by over 300% since the launch of the zkSync Era mainnet from $0.10 to $0.41.
Some of these native applications, like SyncSwap, do not have a token yet, which will likely bring additional airdrops in the application’s native token, besides the zkSync airdrop.
The zkSync ecosystem is experiencing a positive explosion due to airdrop hype. Moreover, there’s significant room for growth of the ecosystem, given that layer-2s like Arbitrum and Optimism have DeFi TVLs at $2.28 billion and $910 million, respectively.
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