Linea users see point distribution as farming season rolls to painstakingly delayed conclusion

Linea’s long-delayed airdrop may be arriving soon as the point farming period draws to a close. The L2 chain has moved at a slower pace compared to other high-profile airdrops like Arbitrum. The project’s point farming period also lasted an extended period with unclear end results. 

The actual Linea airdrop may be coming soon as its main point farming activities are drawing to a conclusion. Linea, along with ZKSync, was part of the recent wave of ZK rollup projects. The Linea airdrop, however, comes at a later date, and users have had to grind for a longer time, with little clarity on the potential payout. 

Recent point ranking for Scroll and Linea shows the distribution of farmers based on XP points earned. Linea users have an average of 372 points per user, although it is skewed toward smaller allocations per user.

The latest Linea task from aggregators will end on September 19. Until then, basic tasks like wallet creation are still active without a deadline. Additionally, Linea Volt series has two more sessions to go, requiring users to provide liquidity from a selection of stablecoins and other assets. 

The goal for Linea was to complete six rounds of Volt liquidity tasks or to stop when the protocol accrues $3B in value locked. For now, despite the incentives and the LXP-L points, Linea has only achieved $487.95M in value locked. 

Linea airdrop collides with news of co-founder leaving the project

Linea was a high-profile L2 chain with promises of ZK rollups. The backing of Consensys, a key service in the Ethereum ecosystem, further lifted the profile of Linea. However, the airdrop plans encountered a recent hitch, as one of the co-founders of Linea and Consensys left the project. 

Marco Monaco was also Linea’s Growth Lead, but he has now left the project’s future to the MetaMask and Consensys teams. Monaco parted ways with Linea back in June but made the announcement official just as the project closes in on its airdrop. 

The announcement led to social media rumors that the latest tasks and liquidity required on Linea may be in vain. Some even suggested the project may abandon the airdrop. The project’s hierarchy has not suggested anything regarding abandoning airdrop plans, though Monaco mentioned a “significant transition” for the project. 

The biggest problem with airdrop tasks is they offer a skewed result on network activity. Users hope on a bigger payout and use the chain despite any costs or inconvenience. Linea shows a slowdown of economic activity despite the ongoing incentives, as point farmers clustered to the early stages for maximum payouts.  

Linea also had an extremely long point farming period of more than a year, with tasks of significant complexity and diminishing rewards. Some of the early adopters have farmed points as early as the testnet stage, with no clarity of the potential allocation. Some of these point farmers have supported the network for two years, with no promise of a payout or a deadline. 

Linea also lags in stablecoin adoption

Despite point farming tasks that involved stablecoin liquidity, Linea also lags in inflows. Linea only holds around $47M in stablecoin market cap, far behind other L2 chains. 

Linea is also still a Stage 0 rollup, based on how its consensus is achieved. ZK projects gained all the hype, though some are not delivering the technological solutions promised. In fact, they still rely on centralized coordination. 

On a daily basis, Linea also pays only around $150, a negligible amount, to use the Layer 1 Ethereum chain for extra security. Linea paid more than $734K in daily fees as of December 2023, grabbing attention as a potentially highly active L2. Transaction count has also fallen toward 430K daily, down from a peak at 3.4M transactions due to point farming activities. 

A similar situation is happening with Scroll, another ZK Layer 2 rollup solution. Scroll also shows a slowdown of transactions, and a long period of farming with no airdrop deadline. Scroll farmers have, on average, 250 points each. 

The Linea airdrop was promoted during peak token season, where even small tasks led to big payouts. Linea combined NFT, liquidity and technical tasks, potentially leading to payouts of $5,000 based on social media estimates. However, the long period of point farming and a relative weakness of token markets may limit potential earnings. 

Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva.