0xabhay / large-airdrops-in-a-gas-efficient-way-using-merkle-trees

Gas-Efficient Large Airdrop using Merkle Trees

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Features
• How It Works

Introduction

This GitHub project aims to provide a gas-efficient way of conducting a large airdrop using Merkle trees. Airdrops, which involve the distribution of tokens or assets to a large number of users, can be extremely expensive in terms of gas fees on blockchain networks. The use of Merkle trees helps reduce these costs significantly, making large-scale airdrops more feasible.

A Merkle tree is a hash tree data structure where each non-leaf node is the hash of its children. This property allows for efficient proof generation and verification of data within the tree. Merkle trees are widely used in blockchain systems for various purposes, including airdrop distribution.

Features

• Gas-efficient airdrop mechanism.
• Support for large-scale distributions.
• Secure and tamper-proof proofs of inclusion.
• Easy integration with existing smart contracts and projects.
• Minimal dependencies to keep the implementation lightweight.

How It Works

1. Airdrop Preparation: The airdrop initiator prepares the distribution list with the recipients' addresses and corresponding token amounts. This information is structured as a Merkle tree.

2. Merkle Root Calculation: The Merkle root of the prepared tree is computed. This root serves as a unique identifier for the entire tree.

3. Smart Contract Deployment: The Merkle root is then embedded into a smart contract deployed on the desired blockchain network.

4. Recipient Verification: To claim their airdropped tokens, recipients need to provide proofs of inclusion. A proof consists of a series of hashes that demonstrate the inclusion of their address and token amount in the Merkle tree.

5. Gas-Efficient Verification: Verifying the proof on-chain requires minimal computation, making it a gas-efficient process.