Over 50 million points were clawed back ahead of Backpack's TGE on March 23, with Chinese-speaking users bearing the brunt of the anti-sybil sweep. The Chinese community erupted in backlash as many saw their accumulated points wiped.
Claire, an early Backpack core member, posted on March 24 that the Chinese team had a heated debate with the European and American team the night before. She said the Chinese team "doesn't want to see the interests of users who supported us affected," but the anti-sybil rules ultimately followed the Western compliance framework.
50M Points Vanish, KYC and Manual Verification Required
Backpack's "Epilogue" phase used data analysis to recover over 50 million fake points. All accounts needed to complete KYC and a second manual confirmation by March 15 to keep their points. The core rule was strict one-person-one-account.
The friction arose from different attitudes toward multi-accounting. Western teams treated any operation beyond their strict compliance rules as sybil behavior. Chinese users, long accustomed to running multiple wallets for airdrops, did not consider it cheating. The result: a disproportionate share of Chinese users lost their points.
Appeal Channel Opens, Up to 50%+ Return for 3 Accounts or Fewer
In response to community outcry, Backpack founder Armani Ferrante and the core team quickly launched a remedy. An appeal channel opened immediately: users who operated 3 or fewer accounts from one device and were flagged as sybils could recover at least 50% of their points after manual review.
For token buybacks, the team plans to start a dedicated program in the coming days, purchasing BP tokens from the secondary market to compensate eligible users. Using real capital to buy back tokens and compensate affected users is a rare move in crypto airdrop history.