Early adopters can now claim 8% of the token\u2019s supply, with 30% earmarked to provide ongoing trading incentives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zeta Markets, a Solana-based decentralized perpetuals exchange, is the latest web3 project to airdrop a token to early adopters.<\/p>\n
On June 27, Zeta opened<\/a> airdrop claims for its ZEX token. ZEX facilitates governance and staking for the project, and will also serve as the native gas token for Zeta\u2019s upcoming Layer 2 network, Zeta X.<\/p>\n \u201cZEX is the native token of Zeta Markets, powering governance, staking, and incentives on the protocol,\u201d Zeta said. \u201cAdditionally, ZEX will serve as both the native gas token and an incentive mechanism on Zeta X, Zeta\u2019s pioneering DeFi L2 on Solana.\u201d<\/p>\n Zeta is currently the 25th-largest DeFi protocol on Solana with a total value locked of $17.2 million, according to DeFi Llama. The platform drove $45 million in 24-hour volume, has processed $10 billion<\/a> in cumulative volume since launching in 2021, and hosts 125,000 monthly active users.<\/p>\n For comparison, dYdX v4, a top DeFi derivatives exchange, hosted $542 million worth of trades over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.<\/p>\n Zeta allocated 10% of ZEX\u2019s supply to the airdrop. Active Zeta traders can now claim 70% of the drop, with allocations determined by an internal snapshot taken on June 7. <\/p>\n Zeta ecosystem partners will receive 1% of ZEX\u2019s supply, while the remaining tokens are going to ZEX stakers in a follow-up drop<\/a> that will take place after 28 days. Airdrop claims will remain open until Sept. 25, 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cThe initial airdrop is designed to reward genuine and long-term users of Zeta,\u201d the project said.<\/p>\n Zeta added that 30% of ZEX\u2019s total supply is earmarked to providing ongoing trading incentives, with rewards distributed to users over 90 epochs lasting 28 days each.<\/p>\n Zeta claims its token is among the first to introduce a \u201cvote-escrow\u201d (VE) mechanism to the Solana ecosystem.<\/p>\n VE stakers receive governance power proportional to the sum of staked assets and the time duration that tokens are locked for, allowing stakers to vote on which asset pools rewards are allocated to. This mechanism famously gave rise to the \u201cCurve Wars<\/a>\u201d in 2021, where DeFi protocols competed to allocate CRV to Curve\u2019s liquidity pools.<\/p>\n Zeta described VE-tokenomics as \u201cincentivizing long-term commitment with exponentially greater governance and boosted incentives for stakers.\u201d<\/p>\n The airdrop follows Zeta announcing<\/a> plans to launch a Solana-based Layer 2 appchain, Zeta X (ZX) on May 23.<\/p>\n Zeta X will comprise a Solana-based optimistic rollup<\/a> that utilizes zero-knowledge proofs<\/a> to facilitate permissionless on-chain settlement. The platform will match orders on Layer 2 while using Solana\u2019s base layer for data availability and settlement, aiming to offer on-chain performance comparable to centralized platforms.<\/p>\n The project claims Zeta X will facilitate throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second and transaction confirmation in less than 10 milliseconds. Zeta X will also support leverage of up to 50x.<\/p>\n \u201cBy taking the inherent strengths of Solana’s Layer 1 and harnessing the power of a purpose-built L2, ZX will provide traders with an unparalleled experience in terms of speed, efficiency, and security,\u201d said Tristan Frizza, Founder of Zeta Markets.<\/p>\n Frizza told The Defiant that although the project is currently focused on building out ZX to support a revamped Zeta exchange, it will invite third-party developers to build \u201csynergistic applications\u201d on the network in the future.<\/p>\n “Our current plans are to focus on a single exchange application to best prioritize liquidity and user experience,\u201d Frizza said. \u201cThat being said, following that we would definitely be exploring ways for people to compose on top of this liquidity layer and build synergistic applications on our L2, for example, money markets, basis trading vaults, etc.”<\/p>\n Zeta X is expected to launch on mainnet during the first quarter of 2025 following a testnet deployment in Q3 of this year.<\/p>\n Zeta\u2019s Layer 2 ambitions come as Solana\u2019s ecosystem appears to be tentatively moving towards embracing L2, despite the Solana team committing<\/a> to achieving high-throughput scalability at its base layer.<\/p>\n On June 21, Light Protocol and Helius Labs ignited controversy with the testnet deployment of ZK Compression<\/a>, a Solana-based scaling solution appearing to borrow much of its architecture from Ethereum Layer 2s.<\/p>\nVote-escrow tokenomics<\/h2>\n
Zeta X to join Solana\u2019s L2 ecosystem<\/h2>\n