Airdrop hunters received 40% of Celestia tokens

Approximately 40% of the Celestia platform TIA tokens distributed during the airdrop were received by seed hunters, researchers from X-explore found.

We explore the Sybil Group in the Celestia Airdrop after claiming. We found 20.1% of addresses are controlled by
large scale sybil groups and 20.7% of addresses are controlled by normal sybil groups.
Detail in our Mirror: https://t.co/9UDUkR9XbO pic.twitter.com/jN1mi5VdLM

— X-explore (@x_explore_eth) November 2, 2023

The team timed the distribution of coins to coincide with the launch of the main network called Lemon Mint, which took place on October 31.

A total of 138,981 addresses requested TIA out of 191,391 eligible addresses. The stated distribution volume was 44.4 million tokens – 74% of the planned 60 million TIA.

However, the number of wallets that have carried out the so-called Sybil’s attack for the airdrop turned out to be almost equivalent to the number of regular participants, experts emphasized.

They identified several categories of hunters, classifying them depending on the addresses they controlled. The largest volume of 17.05 million TIA (38.2% of the total production) was received by 51,494 wallets of hunters who were not part of the associations.

Large-scale groups that concentrated more than 20 addresses each accounted for 5.22 million TIAs (20.1%). Other categories of airdrop hunters received approximately the same amount of assets.

The researchers noted that the project team was unable to effectively filter out the addresses attacking the distribution, despite the presence of specific characteristics.

The top performing group of hunters owned a total of 300 wallets and received 77,391 TIA. The coins arrived in equal transactions of 258 tokens, which was difficult not to notice, analysts say.

They noted that in general, attack groups provided an initial surge in on-chain activity through large-scale operations. Already in the fourth block, the number of transactions reached 149, of which 101 were related to the activities of hunters.

A certain sybil group was the first user to do large-scale transactions on Celestia. Their txs happened on block 4 before many CEXs support deposits. This indicates that some sybil groups have advanced technical skills. pic.twitter.com/9QKVhYK1zM

— X-explore (@x_explore_eth) November 2, 2023

In their opinion, significant activity prior to TIA listing on centralized platforms, as well as a number of other signs, indicate that drop hunters have “advanced technical skills.”