Short summary: Engagement-based airdrops can be provably fair, Sybil‑resistant, and conversion‑optimized if you wire attestations, smart accounts, and private identity proofs directly into your scoring and claim flow. Below is a production blueprint (Jan 2026–ready) that turns “points” into measurable ROI while satisfying procurement, legal, and security stakeholders.

Title: Implementing “Engagement‑Based” Airdrop Logic

Hook — the specific technical headache we keep rescuing teams from

• Your points leaderboard is exploding, but the top quartile looks like wallet farms: same funding paths, synchronized activity, identical device fingerprints. Your TGE window is Q2–Q3 2026, and Legal wants “provable fairness” while Growth wants “gasless claims and Frames conversions” without doxxing users. One slip and you’ll either reward bots or drag out the launch by weeks.

Agitate — real 2026 risks you can’t ignore

• Sybil clawbacks are no longer optional. Leading teams now run public Sybil reviews and reallocate points pre‑TGE; if you don’t, expect reputational blowback and a multi‑week delay to rebuild trust. See how Backpack explicitly staged “Sybil detection → redistribution → TGE readiness” in January 2026. (reddit.com)
• “Just drop a Merkle” is a 2023 answer. Claim contracts and lists still fail audits for front‑run edge cases and broken caps; OpenZeppelin’s 2025 Merkle Distributor audit documents realistic pitfalls (claim caps, front‑run griefing, permit domain issues) that show up in production. (openzeppelin.com)
• Smart‑EOA upgrades added both power and a new phish surface. EIP‑7702 unlocked batching and custom logic for EOAs in 2025, but research (Dec 2025) detailed delegation‑based phishing that can drain accounts if your flows don’t constrain authorizations. Your airdrop UX must treat 7702 signing like a privileged session, not a casual click. (reddit.com)
• Identity signals are moving targets. “Sign‑in with World ID” v1 is sunset as of January 31, 2026; you need to plan for IDKit and evolving proof semantics now, not later. (docs.world.org)

Solve — 7Block Labs’ engagement airdrop methodology (technical but pragmatic) We ship a modular, evidence‑based stack you can adopt end‑to‑end or à la carte. It’s built around four pillars: Signals, Scoring, Settlement, and Safety.

1. Signals: measurable, attestable engagement (on‑ and off‑chain)

• On‑chain actions (contract‑specific)
  • Distinct‑counterparty swaps, LP adds/removes with minimum dwell time, governance participation with quorum thresholds, session‑key interactions from smart accounts, milestone completions (e.g., cross‑app paths).
  • We standardize these as Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) schemas so they’re portable, tamper‑evident, and auditable. EAS runs across mainnet and major L2s with millions of attestations, making it the de facto base layer for eligibility proofs. (attest.org)
• Off‑chain actions with on‑chain proofs
  • Farcaster Frames conversions, Discord role verifications, in‑app purchases, or learning milestones → attested via EAS (on‑chain) or off‑chain attestations anchored to a schema; we maintain an appeals‑friendly provenance trail.
  • EAS explorer data shows high‑volume deployments on L2s (e.g., Scroll) with millions of attestations, indicating your program can piggyback mature infra rather than inventing new rails. (scroll.easscan.org)
• Identity and trust without PII sprawl
  • ZK credentials (IDKit/World ID v25, Polygon/Billions‑style verifiable credentials) that assert “one human,” “jurisdiction OK,” or “KYC‑screened” without exposing personal data. For institutional airdrops (RWA, B2B networks), we can bind contract addresses to eIDAS‑qualified electronic seals for machine‑verifiable counterparty trust — useful when compliance wants “Know Your Contract/Counterparty” at claim time. (docs.world.org)
• Procurement‑friendly architecture
  • We align with the Ethereum Foundation’s current push for shared attestation registries and trust federations, so your eligibilities aren’t a dead‑end silo and can interop across chains/protocols. (esp.ethereum.foundation)

1. Scoring: Sybil‑resistant, decay‑aware, and transparent

• Feature set (engineered for anti‑gaming)
  • Temporal lifecycle features: time‑to‑first‑gas, funding source graph distance, first action latency, velocity changes near snapshots.
  • Network structure: 2‑hop transaction subgraphs, cluster centrality, escrow/bridge motifs, known farm heuristics.
  • Behavior diversity: unique counterparties, protocol mix, week‑over‑week streaks, session‑key bounded tasks.
  • We implement graph features based on recent research that outperforms naive heuristics (precision/recall/F1/AUC > 0.9 on labeled datasets), then calibrate thresholds for your growth goals. (arxiv.org)
• Scoring policy
  • Weighted multi‑signal score with exponential decay (recent activity counts more), plus hard disqualifiers (funding clusters, automated churn indicators).
  • Eligibility classes: “Prime” (full share), “Verified‑human” (ZK‑proof gated), “Provisional” (reduced share), “Appealable” (quarantine list).
• Governance and appeals
  • We stage Sybil detection and publish criteria like Backpack’s approach (document, then cut, then redistribute) to avoid PR whiplash. We provide a dashboard and a 5–7 day appeals window with on‑chain proofs or attester endorsements. (reddit.com)

1. Settlement: claims that convert (and survive audits)

• Smart accounts and session keys out of the box
  • We prefer ERC‑7579‑compatible modular smart accounts for future‑proofing (session keys, MFA, policy modules) and Safe‑adapter compatibility; these avoid vendor lock‑in and let you add features post‑deploy. (ercs.ethereum.org)
• Gasless claims that just work
  • Integrate ERC‑7677 paymasters so claimants don’t need native gas. We support Coinbase Paymaster and Circle Paymaster, and we standardize on viem’s paymaster client for clean SDK integration. This reduces drop‑off at claim time without hard‑wiring to a single vendor. (eips.ethereum.org)
• Safer distribution contracts
  • We ship Merkle/Multiproof distributors hardened against known pitfalls: enforce per‑address caps, close griefing vectors, and correctly domain‑separate permit signatures. We back this with a focused audit track referencing recent OZ findings. (openzeppelin.com)
• Multi‑chain if needed (without chaos)
  • If your airdrop spans L2s/chains, we design the claim topology first (per‑chain allocations with canonical root, or cross‑chain proofs), then connect using a hardened bridge pattern and observability. See our cross‑chain solutions development and blockchain bridge development.

1. Safety: secure by construction, not by hope

• 7702 guardrails
  • Treat EIP‑7702 authorizations as privileged sessions; scope them narrowly (one‑time, time‑boxed, function‑scoped) and display clear UX affordances. Our flow uses policy modules to block unknown delegates and prevents chain‑agnostic replay. (arxiv.org)
• Operational resilience
  • Paymaster SRE runbook: monitor EntryPoint deposits, bundler health, and sponsorship policies. Coinbase and Circle now publish stable, ERC‑7677‑compliant services — we wrap both as hot‑swappable providers to minimize vendor risk. (docs.cdp.coinbase.com)
• Audit and runtime monitoring
  • We pair delivery with a targeted audit sprint and open‑source relayer/monitor components; note the broader shift as OpenZeppelin sunsets Defender by July 1, 2026 — we plan for your long‑term ops without SaaS lock‑in. (blog.openzeppelin.com)

Practical examples (2026‑ready patterns you can lift into code this month) Example A — Consumer DeFi airdrop on Base with Frames‑driven top‑of‑funnel

• Goal: reward wallets that actually trade, provide liquidity for ≥7 days, and convert from Farcaster Frames, while filtering farms.
• Signals
  • EAS on‑chain attestations:
    • SwapExecuted(schema v1)
    • LPStreak7(schema v1)
    • FrameConversion(schema v1)
  • Off‑chain:
    • KYC‑less proofs: IDKit “proof‑of‑uniqueness” for a minority bonus tier.
• Scoring sketch (JSON)

{
  "weights": {
    "swapExecuted": 0.35,
    "lpStreak7": 0.45,
    "frameConversion": 0.20
  },
  "decay": {"half_life_days": 28},
  "hard_filters": {
    "funding_cluster_radius": {"<=": 1},
    "first_gas_age_days": {">=": 14}
  },
  "bonus": {
    "zk_human": 0.10,
    "multi_counterparty": {"threshold": 12, "value": 0.05}
  }
}

• Claim UX
  • Wallets without ETH use ERC‑7677 gas sponsorship; we rotate between Coinbase/Circle paymasters for resilience and cost. viem’s paymaster client standardizes the integration path. (docs.cdp.coinbase.com)
• Why it works in 2026
  • You’ll capture real conversions via Frames without bending identity; and because Sybil farms telegraph via clusterable funding/time patterns, your score penalizes them before final lists are minted. Backstop with a public Sybil review a week before TGE, like Backpack’s cadence. (reddit.com)

Example B — Institutional/RWA network airdrop with compliance‑grade gating

• Goal: distribute governance rights to actual counterparties (fintechs, treasuries, liquidity providers) under EU‑compatible trust rules.
• Signals
  • eIDAS‑sealed contract addresses (Qualified e‑Seals) bound to the claimant’s smart account; verifiable on‑chain and automatable for procurement and audit. (arxiv.org)
  • EAS “CounterpartyEligibility” attestation from approved issuers; trust tiers resolved via a federated registry pattern the Ethereum Foundation is actively advocating. (esp.ethereum.foundation)
• Scoring
  • Heavily weight attested “Business‑Verified” class; time‑weight actual protocol usage; penalize funding through mixers or short‑horizon capital rotations.
• Claim UX
  • Smart‑account‑first (ERC‑7579 modules) to support policy engines (spend limits, approvers), and gasless claims via ERC‑7677 with a named sponsor. (ercs.ethereum.org)
• Why it works in 2026
  • Procurement can point to machine‑verifiable counterparty proofs and a published trust policy; Compliance gets revocation and auditing; Growth still gets a clean, gasless claim flow. (arxiv.org)

Schemas you can copy/paste (first mile)

• EAS Schema: SwapExecuted

key: bytes32 txHash, address trader, address router, address baseToken, address quoteToken, uint256 amountIn, uint256 amountOut, uint64 chainId, uint64 blockTime
revocable: true

• EAS Schema: LPStreak7

key: address provider, address pool, uint64 startTime, uint64 endTime, uint256 minTVL, bool completed
revocable: true

• EAS Schema: FrameConversion

key: address user, bytes32 campaignId, bytes32 frameId, string medium, uint64 ts
offchain: allowed (anchor via Merkle root)

• Identity bonus (optional)

key: address user, bytes32 issuer, string claimType ("zk-human-uniqueness"), bytes32 proofRef
privacy: zk-proof reference only (no PII)

We implement issuers, verification endpoints, and revocation policies, and we publish schemas to EAS so anyone can audit your logic. (attest.org)

Safety checklist you’ll actually use

• Delegate sessions (EIP‑7702):
  • One‑time scope per claim, explicit function selectors, expiry ≤ 5 minutes, chain‑pinned, and no cross‑chain reuse; render human‑readable intents. Research shows persistent delegation can be phished without these controls. (arxiv.org)
• Paymaster hardening (ERC‑7677):
  • Set sponsor allowlists, request stubs first, reject early on policy mismatch, monitor EntryPoint balances, run dual providers (Coinbase/Circle) behind a health‑checked proxy; use the standard RPCs (pm_getPaymasterStubData, pm_getPaymasterData). (eips.ethereum.org)
• Distributor contracts:
  • Enforce claim caps, domain‑separate all permits, make replay‑safe, and expose explicit revocation slots; mirror OZ audit learnings to avoid last‑mile reversions. (openzeppelin.com)
• Trust & attestations:
  • Leverage the ecosystem’s scale — EAS is a neutral, token‑free public good with multi‑chain presence and millions of attestations; it’s stable enough to standardize eligibility proofs and appeals. (attest.org)

GTM proof — how we measure outcomes (not vibes)

• “Eligible after Sybil”: share of wallets surviving detection. Industry examples show large deltas post‑filtering (e.g., Wormhole reported ~400k eligible wallets after a multi‑month Sybil pass). Your steering metric should be the ratio “eligible/participants,” not just raw claim count. (coinness.com)
• “Claim conversion without gas”: track claim funnel abandonment with vs. without ERC‑7677 sponsorship; standard paymaster offerings by Coinbase and Circle make this measurable and portable. (docs.cdp.coinbase.com)
• “Engaged retention (L7/L30)”: action‑weighted retention using attestations, not logins; L7/L30 ≥ target shows you’re rewarding durable behavior.
• “Appeals throughput and reversal rate”: publish and time‑box appeals; a low, explainable reversal rate proves your scoring is accurate and fair (and keeps Twitter calm).
• “Procurement readiness”: artifacts delivered — schema registry, trust policy, DPA‑friendly data map (no PII on‑chain), threat model, SLOs for paymaster/bundler.

What 7Block Labs delivers (and the timeline to de‑risk your TGE)

• Technical workstreams
  • Signal integration: EAS schemas, indexers, and (optional) ZK/IDKit or eIDAS trust bindings.
  • Scoring engine: graph features + decay policy + governance thresholds; build a transparency dashboard for stakeholders.
  • Claim infra: ERC‑7579 smart‑account path, ERC‑7677 paymasters (Coinbase/Circle), hardened distributor, observability.
  • Security and ops: targeted audit sprint, runbooks, and fallback playbooks.
• Playbook timeline
  • Week 1–2: Discovery, schema design, minimal attesters, seed features, dry‑run datasets.
  • Week 3–4: Scoring calibration, Sybil pre‑review, claim contract audit, paymaster integration.
  • Week 5: Public Sybil review window (5–7 days), finalize lists, rehearsal on testnets with gasless path enabled.
  • Week 6: Production claims, live monitoring, appeals triage, redistribution if needed.
• Every step includes measurable gates tied to GTM (eligibility ratio, conversion, retention, appeals reversal), not just “contract deployed.”

Audience — who this is for (and the search terms they’re actually using)

• Growth/Product leads at consumer Web3 companies and L2 ecosystems looking for:
  • “Sybil‑resistant points systems,” “EAS attestation schemas,” “ERC‑7677 paymaster,” “Frames conversion measurement,” “ERC‑7579 session keys,” “7702 session safety.”
• Ecosystem BD and Grants teams:
  • “Trust‑tiered airdrop eligibility,” “federated attestation registry,” “cross‑chain eligibility portability.”
• Risk/Compliance owners at exchanges and RWA platforms:
  • “eIDAS‑qualified e‑seal on smart contracts,” “privacy‑preserving KYC attestations,” “Know‑Your‑Contract automation,” “appeals governance templates.” (arxiv.org)

Where our methodology maps to your roadmap — and exactly what to click next

• Need a full build? Our custom blockchain development services team will design and ship the airdrop stack end‑to‑end.
• Already have the app, need attestation + scoring only? Engage our blockchain integration practice; we wire EAS, IDKit, and paymasters into your stack with dashboards.
• Concerned about last‑mile safety? Our security audit services focus on distributor/claim paths, 7702 session scopes, and paymaster policies.
• Multi‑chain campaign? Lean on cross‑chain solutions development and blockchain bridge development for canonical roots, proofs, and monitoring.
• Need growth mechanics? Our web3 development services and dApp development teams add Frames, session‑key UX, and on‑chain quests wired to attestations.
• Token economics and launch support? Our fundraising, DeFi development services, DEX development services, and smart contract development groups coordinate listings, liquidity, and vesting with your eligibility logic.

Why this approach wins in 2026

• It rides real, current infra: EAS for attestations, modular smart accounts (ERC‑7579) to avoid lock‑in, standard paymasters (ERC‑7677) supported by Coinbase, Circle, and mainstream SDKs; it anticipates identity changes (World ID deprecation/migration), and packages legal‑grade trust for enterprise with eIDAS‑aligned proofs. (attest.org)

Personalized CTA If you own the airdrop/GTM workstream for a Base or Arbitrum launch scheduled between April and July 2026, email us your tentative snapshot date and target wallet count; within 48 hours we’ll return a one‑page plan with concrete EAS schemas, an ERC‑7677 paymaster wiring diagram, and a Sybil‑review calendar you can hand to Legal and Growth. No fluff — just the exact steps to ship on time with fewer bots and higher claim conversion.

References (selected)

• Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS): scale and multi‑chain availability; Scroll scanner volumes. (attest.org)
• EF call for federated attestation registries (trust tiering, cross‑chain propagation). (esp.ethereum.foundation)
• Backpack Jan 2026 Sybil process (public detection and redistribution staging). (reddit.com)
• ERC‑7579 (modular smart accounts) standard and ecosystem adoption. (ercs.ethereum.org)
• ERC‑7677 (standard paymaster capability), Coinbase Paymaster, Circle Paymaster, viem paymaster client. (eips.ethereum.org)
• EIP‑7702 benefits and phishing risks (delegate‑based control). (reddit.com)
• OZ Merkle Distributor audit notes (real‑world pitfalls to harden). (openzeppelin.com)
• World ID v1 deprecation and migration timeline (Jan 31, 2026). (docs.world.org)
• Airdrop Sybil‑filtering outcomes (Wormhole eligibility after filtering). (coinness.com)

Appendix: why attestations are the “money phrase” for engagement

• Attestations make eligibility composable. You earn a “proof of action,” not a spreadsheet row. Wallets can reuse proofs across campaigns, apps can verify without calling your servers, and compliance can audit without trawling logs. In 2026, teams that treat engagement as attestable capital — and anchor their airdrops to it — are shipping faster, fairer, and with lower CAC payback uncertainty. (attest.org)