Vitalik Buterin advocates blockchain identity for fairer crypto airdrops

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sees crypto airdrops as a promising initial use case for blockchain-based identity frameworks.

In an Aug. 28 post on X, Buterin outlined the goals of airdrops as distributing tokens to genuine community members, rewarding project contributions, and ensuring fairness. He suggested that projects could leverage ZK-based identity, credential, and attestation frameworks to achieve these aims.

He emphasized:

“We can actually use all of these identity/credential/attestation solutions that the identity geeks have been working on for the past 5 years in order to…actually [have] good token distributions.”

Buterin added that current identity projects like Worldcoin might need to incorporate proofs of community membership because crypto projects aim to reward aligned community members, not just random individuals.

Buterin’s idea comes at a crucial time as crypto airdrops have faced growing controversy. Many participants attempt to game the system by using multiple wallets to farm airdrops, often with profitable results.

This has pushed projects to tighten their distribution methods to filter out airdrop farmers. However, these measures sometimes impact genuine users.

Discounted sales

Buterin also suggested that the same framework could be used for discounted token sales. He explained that the extent of an individual’s community membership or contributions could determine the number of tokens they can purchase at a reduced price.

He noted that this approach could help distribute the supply more fairly, reward non-financial contributors, and ensure buyers have a stake in the project.

Buterin commented:

“Any technique that works for airdrops also works for discounts. A related concept is to subsidize savings rates for smaller accounts as an alternative to UBI. Singapore’s CPF already does something similar.”

However, the Ethereum co-founder conceded that his idea could face implementation challenges. According to him:

“I don’t think there’s any one solution, I think it’s a multi-factor thing that will have to evolve over time. It’s an inherently hard problem, but it’s a super rewarding one, because if we solve it, that solution could naturally be exported to much better reward all kinds of currently-uncompensated work in our economy across all of humanity.”

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