Earlier this week, blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps linked a cluster of addresses that, between them, claimed $170 million of MYX tokens during Myx Finance’s airdrop.
In Bubblemaps’ follow-up investigation, it claims to have linked Myx team wallets to the “sybil” cluster. The connection comes via a shared exchange deposit address it alleges funded the MYX token launch on BNB Chain.
In the original investigation, which came on the back of a monster MYX price pump, Bubblemaps said it “traced 100 freshly funded addresses with the exact same on-chain activity.”
All the addresses were “freshly funded via OKX,” at approximately the same time, one month in advance of the airdrop.
They received similar amounts of funds and most “initiated their claim at the same time.”
Read more: BubbleMaps says MYX Finance made $170M airdrop farming blunder
Myx Finance responded to the post, stating that “campaign rewards have been strictly based on users’ genuine trading volume and LP contributions, without any additional restrictions.”
It added that, “looking ahead… we will place greater emphasis on preventing sybil attacks.”
What is a “sybil attack”?
Airdrops are a way for crypto projects to launch a token to a wide community, while simultaneously rewarding early adopters. These rewards can be significant, and often attract airdrop hunters looking to maximise their allocation.
Typically, airdrop criteria are kept secret from the public until a snapshot of user activity has been determined.
In theory, team members may be able to use knowledge of the airdrop criteria to qualify on their own wallets. Many airdrop hunters simply conduct swaps or deposit funds across many addresses, known as sybils, to increase their chances.
Most projects attempt to filter out these sybil addresses, often by analysis of common funding patterns. These are then excluded or have their allocations greatly reduced, in order to discourage such behavior.
$170 million sybil cluster linked to team wallets?
The link between the sybil cluster and team-controlled addresses hinges on a Bitget deposit address, 0xa857.
This address received MYX tokens worth $2.8 million today from one of the sybil addresses, 0x4a31. The deposit address also received a similar amount from 0xeb5a, which Bubblemaps linked to the MYX token deployer over four hops, across two chains.
Ownership of an address can generally be traced through the entity that first funds it. This is because a new address is unable to make transactions without a native gas token (BNB on BNB Chain, for example).
Bubblemaps called Myx Finance’s response to its initial post “a vague and ambiguous answer,” insisting that “these new findings paint a worse picture.” It also encouraged MYX Finance “to provide more explanation for what we are seeing onchain.”
Protos has reached out to both Myx Finance and Bubblemaps and will update this story if we hear back.
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Source: https://protos.com/bubblemaps-links-myx-team-to-170m-airdrop-farm/