TL;DR
When it comes to a project launching a token, figuring out how to distribute it to the community is one of the most important things to consider. But let’s be honest—the old-style airdrops kind of suck. They often turn into a frustrating guessing game for users, with cutthroat unfair competition and plenty of disappointment. And for projects, it’s even worse. These drops create a toxic “farm-sell-leave” cycle, with little long-term value sticking around after launch to support post-launch growth.
This is where Brevis and Usual come in with a new solution: Continuous Protocol Incentivization. This innovative system aligns the interests of both projects and their communities for long-term success. Powered by Brevis’s ZK Coprocessor, Usual is building a decentralized, transparent, and secure token distribution program. It’s designed to reward users for real, ongoing engagement within Usual’s stable token ecosystem. Launching in November 2024, Continuous Protocol Incentivization will be open-sourced so others can easily adapt it for their own token distribution needs.
From Surprise to Stumble: The Fall of Airdrops
Back in 2020, token airdrops worked under a simple but powerful idea: the early users of a protocol or product, when almost no one else was paying attention, were likely to be its biggest fans. So, rewarding these die-hard core supporters with a SURPRISE token drop made sense to help enable them to become evangelists and champions of the product or protocol, helping to drive its future growth.
And it worked—at first. Almost any airdrop could spark a surge in awareness and adoption. But fast-forward to today, and what was once a growth catalyst has turned into a “jumping-off-the-cliff” moment for both projects and users.
So what changed? The element of surprise is gone. Having the idea of airdrops shift from a potential gifted reward to supporters to one of an entitled expectation has eroded the very foundation of airdrops.
Instead of being a pleasant reward for the early, adventurous users, airdrops have become highly institutionalized, with participants expecting financial returns. This shift means that the authentic and true early adopter community often gets diluted by professional airdrop farmers who use harmful tactics like sybil attacks to game the system. Even worse, the process feels both unfair and frustrating, with rules hidden in a “black box” until token launch and distribution actually occur.
For projects, airdrops have also become a costly burden. Even though the rules are opaque, there’s now an unspoken, unbreakable social obligation to overcompensate users for their efforts. The bigger problem? These airdrops don’t contribute to long-term growth like they did in the past. Since they distribute tokens based on past engagement up to a single point in time, users tend to sell their tokens and leave as soon as the distribution ends—tanking engagement levels. This “farm-sell-leave” dynamic damages projects, turning what should be the start of rapid hockey-stick growth into what looks like the trajectory of the car in the image above.
The Next Generation of Token Distribution: Continuous Protocol Incentivization
That said, there’s nothing wrong with using token incentives to drive user acquisition and product growth—it just needs to be done right. That’s why Brevis and Usual have teamed up to build the next generation of token incentives: Continuous Protocol Incentivization (CPI).
Let’s break down the design goals of this new token distribution system powered by ZK technology:
Incentives Aligned for Long-Term Growth
Rather than only rewarding pre-launch activities, Continuous Protocol Incentivization continuously distributes tokens based on users’ ongoing engagement with the protocol. This helps projects build sustainable, post-launch growth while giving the community a stake in the long-term success of the ecosystem.
Decentralized and Trust-free
While airdrops can be handled in a centralized way, Continuous Protocol Incentivization should not be. Continuous token distribution from a centralized source may raise concerns around fairness, security, and compliance. Instead, Continuous Protocol Incentivization leverages Brevis’s ZK Coprocessor, allowing users to generate zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) of their historical activity and interactions within the protocol ecosystem. These proofs can then be verified on-chain, enabling users to claim rewards in a fully decentralized, trustless manner.
Scalable and Low-cost
One might ask why we don’t just implement CPI directly on-chain. While it is in theory possible to access historical blockchain data based on the latest blockheader through iterative Merkle Tree inclusion proofs and RLP data deserialization, such computation would incur astronomical costs and latency that make such implementation impractical. Using Brevis, this complex computation and the corresponding ZK Proving process are migrated to an ultra-low-cost and parallel off-chain computing environment. This makes CPI highly scalable and cost-effective.
Transparent and Adjustable Rules
In contrast to the “mysterious black box” rules of traditional airdrops, Continuous Protocol Incentivization’s rules are fully transparent. No more guessing games. Plus, they can be adjusted through a project’s on-chain governance process, giving DAOs the flexibility to evolve the program as needed.
Support for Flexible Distribution Logic
While continuous liquidity farming is decentralized and transparent, it often supports only limited use cases and requires additional composability features. With Brevis’s programmable SDK, smart contracts can access diverse on-chain data—such as storage states, events, and transactions—and run custom computations on that data. This allows Continuous Protocol Incentivization to accommodate any number of eligibility and reward criteria, whether it’s token balances, transfers, LPing, governance participation, fee accumulation, price volatility, and more, all without needing to modify existing smart contracts.
Launching the Continuous Protocol Incentivization System
After evaluating all available solutions, Usual identified and selected Brevis as the optimal and ideal partner thanks to Brevis’s production-ready SDK that meets all the key design goals mentioned above. With Brevis’s highly scalable ZK computing core, this new token incentivization system can easily handle the high demand of Usual’s active community.
“We are very happy to partner with Brevis to build out the CPI system as it aligns perfectly with our core values. said Pierre Person, CEO & Founder of Usual, “With Brevis’s scalable ZK technology, Usual can empower a truly decentralized ecosystem, ensuring that all valuable contributions are recognized and rewarded. This partnership reflects our commitment to building a stablecoin protocol where our community is integral to its growth and long-term success.”
Using this innovative Continuous Protocol Incentivization system, Usual will continuously distribute its upcoming $USUAL token. Initially, users who engage with and provide liquidity to Usual’s $USD0 and $USD0++ stable token system on platforms like PancakeSwap, Morpho, Curve, and Pendle will be eligible to mint new $USUAL tokens. To do this, they’ll simply verify their engagement through Brevis’s ZK proof technology. This is just the beginning and we plan to add more protocol integrations in the future.
We hope to change the paradigm of token incentive design by leveraging ZK technology to create a more equitable, transparent, and sustainable model for community engagement. With the launch of the Continuous Protocol Incentivization system, we’re moving beyond traditional airdrops to a system that rewards users for their ongoing contributions. This approach not only aligns incentives for long-term growth but also empowers users with the tools to verify their engagement in a decentralized and trustless manner. For projects, this means fostering a loyal community that actively participates in the ecosystem, ultimately driving sustained growth and success. Together, we’re paving the way for a new era of token distribution that fosters and rewards genuine community participation while enhancing the overall health of the protocol.
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