The Nillion Airdrop: Setting a New Standard

The Nillion Airdrop: Setting a New Standard

Since launching the Nillion eligibility checker a few weeks ago, I've seen increasing speculation within the community and on CT about who will receive what. Some people are angry, others are excited, but the truth is, nobody knows anything yet. Today, I want to clarify who we are rewarding and explain our exact approach to ensure that TRUE community members are rewarded, rather than the tourists who treat the Nillion Discord as merely an airdrop waiting room. The Difference with Nillion’s Airdrop Before I get into the details, let me blunt: We're doing something different here. Something that might ruffle some feathers, but something we deeply believe will become the standard in how crypto projects recognize their communities. Nillion has always been a project that leads rather than follows. Remember when we pioneered the community round approach that others later adopted? We're doing it again. We're establishing a new standard for recognizing genuine contribution over extractive participation. But here's the important part: we can only do this WITH YOU. Without our core community of believers and builders, this approach would be impossible. The strength and conviction of our true community members allow us to reshape how crypto projects should value their communities.But we can only do this WITH YOU. Our core community's strength and conviction make this possible. Together, we're reshaping how crypto projects should value their communities. The Airdrop Matrix: Measuring What Matters When designing the airdrop matrix, our team identified three primary categories:

• Community Value

• Developer and Open Source Contributions

• Verifier Program Participation

These categories are intended to reward impactful contributions to the project, whether cultural contributions such as art, writing, and design, or technical contributions such as code contributions on GitHub or applications built on the network.

Regarding the verifier program, it was created to demonstrate the power of community-driven privacy, and we succeeded. However, during this process, we encountered sybil attackers and farmers. Some operated one-click nodes (I actively messaged founders of one click node operators to remove Nillion), while others ran multiple wallets, sometimes 40, 50, 60, or even 100+ wallets, to extract value from genuine community members.

This isn't speculation; we've seen these discussions openly shared in Discord subcommunities where airdrop farmers openly discussed their tactics.

Comments like "I claimed on 50 wallets", or discussions inside the Discord on how they need to split IP clearly illustrate the problem we're facing.

We've decided these accounts will not be included in the airdrop even if it currently shows as eligible to ensure that rewards go to our long term supporters and true community members. Weighting Based on Real Impact So, how do we decide which contributions are weighted more heavily than others?

The simple answer: positive value for the project.

This isn't about hours spent, it's about the value generated for our mission. That's why certain roles and contributions receive higher weightings; they've demonstrably moved Nillion forward in meaningful ways.

When someone creates a cultural impact that shapes our community's foundation, that value is immeasurable. When someone dedicates 8-10 months to earn a volunteer role, their commitment shows in ways a one-click node operator never could.

While I won't go into specific numbers or precise details of the airdrop matrix, I believe it's important to offer the community full transparency into our reasoning and allocation approach: Value-Based Reward Weighting for

$NIL

Airdrop The matrix-framework below outlines our reward system. The more items you check off across these categories, the more your rewards stack and multiply.

You don't need to have done everything, but community members who have engaged deeply across multiple categories will see their contributions compound in the final allocation. Community Efforts

Developers

Verifier Program Participants

Launch Partners

Bonuses These did not qualify you for the airdrop, but users who had already proven themselves were given bonuses for their contributions in these areas.

Drawing the Line We worked to include as many people as possible into the airdrop that we could see put real value into the network and the project.

You will NOT be included in the airdrop if you fall into either of these categories: Category 1: Secret Submitters with minimal engagement

• Only submitted 4 secrets

• Did NOT stake any ETH

• Have NO Discord roles (including bonus roles like Sage/Hot Potato)

• Do NOT own a Nill Pill NFT

Category 2: Late Verifiers with minimal engagement

• Started a verifier after September 14, 2024

• Did NOT stake any ETH

• Have NO Discord roles (including bonus roles)

• Do NOT own a Nill Pill NFT

Excluding those that fall into the 2 categories above ensures rewards go to those who demonstrate genuine commitment.

From day one, we designed our programs to be technically challenging enough to discourage pure farmers. We actively fought against one-click node services that tried to make farming easier. We've been fighting this fight longer than you know.

What This Means for Crypto

We believe what we're doing here will become a template for future projects. The first through the wall always gets bloodied, but that's a price worth paying to establish a better standard for community recognition in crypto.

As for the unofficial allocation checkers that are lurking around, be smart, don't believe everything you read and wait for official announcements from the Nillion official Twitter account.

I hope this has provided more transparency to our rigorous decision making process.

To our community: we’re building this for you. I see you, and thank you.

Together, we’re not just building a project, we’re creating a new standard for how crypto communities should function.

To victory,

• Charlie Rogers, Nillion CMO ⚔️