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- Around 5,800 linked wallets claimed most of Apriori’s airdrop tokens.
- The wallets were set up before Apriori revealed its eligibility criteria.
- The suspicious activity points to a possible large-scale Sybil attack.
Apriori, a trading infrastructure startup backed by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao’s venture firm and Yzi Labs, is under heavy criticism after blockchain analysts discovered unusual activity in its recent airdrop. The project distributed its APR token on October 23, aiming to reward early users and contributors.
Nevertheless, the distribution of tokens has also received criticism as it appears that a collaborative wallet cluster hoarded all of the tokens. An analysis of an onchain transaction that was seen by several researchers determined that nearly 80% of all BNB Chain tokens were distributed to a network of over 5,800 wallets.
It appears that all of these wallets operated in a coordinated manner as they sought to claim tokens just a few minutes after the airdrop opened. This is because data provided by the blockchain suggests that this group was planning for an airdrop a few days before Apriori announced its eligibility criteria.
Apriori Token Drops 60% Despite Yzi Labs’ Support
This scandal has also affected Apriori’s $30 million project, which is still in its infancy. The APR token was worth a market value of $93 million at one point but is down by 60% as per CoinGecko. This is a concern for investors as it may lead to a loss of faith in not just the team but also in its integrity.
Apriori is developed by a team of former engineers at Jump Trading, Coinbase, and Citadel Securities. Apriori’s intention is to “design an execution layer for crypto markets using high-frequency trading systems that make on-chain markets faster and more efficient.”
It is financed by top venture capitalist firms such as YZi Labs, HashKey Capital, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures. In spite of its robust financing base, it is a fact that its fast decline in value and a questionable airdrop event have created doubts in investors’ minds. So far, it has not responded to criticism in detail.
Thousands of Wallets Linked to Possible Sybil Attack on Apriori
Onchain data illustrates that thousands of wallets received tiny sums of BNB, an amount merely sufficient for covering network fees in order to claim tokens, between October 19th and 20th. In all of those wallets, funds came from 13 common addresses. This also happened before Apriori’s public statement that a BNB Chain airdrop was to take place.
This type of behavior is characteristic of a Sybil attack, in which users rely on multiple wallets to claim airdrop rewards multiple times and receive an unfair amount of airdrop distribution. Sybil attacks have become common in the crypto market, as users are attracted to new tokens in large numbers.
This incident is also a cause for concern that not all crypto projects do enough to prevent user manipulation issues before they have launched in full. This incident is likely to emerge as one of the biggest airdrop Sybil attacks in recent months.
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