A Look Back at the Polygon zkEVM Quests
The Polygon zkEVM Quests campaign was a strategic initiative designed to bootstrap activity and showcase the capabilities of its Layer 2 scaling solution. By gamifying network interaction, Polygon encouraged users to explore the ecosystem with the underlying hope of a future airdrop. The campaign officially ended on December 31, 2023.
While an airdrop was never explicitly promised, this type of campaign is a common pattern in Web3 for identifying and rewarding early, active community members. Understanding how it worked can be a valuable lesson for engaging with future network launches.
The Path to Potential Rewards: How It Worked
Participation centered on direct, verifiable on-chain activity. While specific quest details varied, the general user journey involved a few key stages:
- Getting Started: The first step for any participant was to fund their wallet on the Polygon zkEVM network. This typically required using a bridge to move assets from Ethereum L1 to the zkEVM L2.
- Ecosystem Exploration: Users were guided to interact with a curated list of dApps. This could involve anything from executing a trade on a decentralized exchange (DEX) to depositing assets in a lending protocol.
- Task Completion: The "Quests" were structured as a checklist of on-chain actions. Completing these tasks not only drove network metrics but also created a transaction history for each user's wallet, which could be used as a basis for determining eligibility for rewards.
Airdrop Status: The Waiting Game
With the campaign now concluded, the community awaits any further announcements from the Polygon team. It remains unknown if, when, or how quest participants will be rewarded. The activity was speculative, and there is no guarantee of a token airdrop.
However, the on-chain history built by participants serves as a permanent record of their early support for the network. This kind of engagement is often a key factor in retroactive airdrop distributions across the crypto space.