When Backpack Betrays the Community

Author: Hu Tao, ChainCatcher

On March 23, Backpack (also known as B backpack) officially launched its native token $BP and opened the points airdrop claim channel. This event, originally seen as a milestone for the Solana ecosystem and carrying high hopes from many crypto enthusiasts, unexpectedly triggered a strong community震动 and plunged into a whirlwind of public opinion.

The core issue lies in the airdrop token distribution. Well-known KOLs such as Bingwa, He Bi, Tu’ao Dashi, Feng Wu Xiang Suo Professor, Meta Ape, anymose, and others have stated that their accounts and studio accounts were flagged as “witches” by the platform, resulting in significantly lower than expected airdrop gains and severe losses.

“Countless retail investors and I came with dreams and hopes to earn from Backpack. We believed you were the true innovators, that things would be different. But sorry, we were wrong. Humans are at the mercy of the system. I am truly heartbroken this time,” said Little Bear Cookies.

Historically, many projects have been criticized for anti-sybil measures, but never has a project been so harshly criticized for anti-sybil actions, with so many KOLs participating in the condemnation.

KOL He Bi even directly added this warning in his profile: “Note: Backpack is a scam exchange, a scam group. Do not use it, beware of being scammed.”

1. Successful KOL Marketing Case

Backpack’s rise was once regarded as a textbook example of marketing. Founded by former FTX executives and backed by the Mad Lads NFT community, combined with its claims of “compliance” and “high performance,” Backpack gained a halo effect right from its launch.

According to RootData, within two years of its founding, Backpack secured $37 million in funding, with investors including Placeholder, Jump Crypto, Robot Ventures, Wintermute, Multicoin Capital, Hashed, Delphi Digital, and other prominent institutions.

In the first phase of the 2024 Pre-Season event, Backpack adopted a “trading volume equals points” logic. At that time, market sentiment was extremely high, and the KOL network greatly promoted Backpack’s expansion.

Over the next one or two years, many crypto KOLs published “comprehensive tutorials” around Backpack, covering how to register and complete KYC, how to trade to increase points, how to use multiple accounts to boost earnings expectations, and how to reduce costs using referral links.

Many KOLs embedded exclusive invitation links in their content, earning through fee rebates and traffic sharing. This model had been validated in multiple previous projects and gradually evolved into a “semi-industrialized” traffic arbitrage path. Under this setup, the higher the trading volume and transaction fees, the more points users earned, and the more airdropped tokens they received.

Under the enthusiastic promotion by KOLs, countless investors and studios paid high transaction fees to “刷单” (fake trades) to chase large airdrops. As a result, Backpack’s user growth exhibited clear characteristics: users did not join solely based on product value but were primarily driven by “airdrop expectations.”

2. Backstabbing the “Community”?

However, when Backpack’s airdrop verification link was released, all the hopes of the “profit-chasing” groups were shattered.

The outcome showed that Backpack adopted a strict “one account per person” policy. If a single device or IP operated multiple accounts, all those accounts would be flagged as “witches,” leading to almost all profit-chasers, especially in the Chinese community, losing everything.

For example, the team of anymose, who participated in multiple points events and actively recruited new users, contributed over $4 billion in trading volume, but all their accounts were marked as “witches.”

0x Yu Xi commented that this situation was like the “Eight-Nation Alliance” invading China in crypto. Chinese contributors are not the most numerous, but they are the second. Yet, almost all Chinese users are labeled as “witches.” No one fears losing money from anti-sybil measures, but such blatant provocation is intolerable.

“Backpack is the project I’ve spent the most time, energy, and money on in crypto. Yesterday’s celebration, which should have been for supporters, turned into an absurd farce. I keep lowering my expectations of the bottom line. From what I’ve heard, the ‘witch’ label mainly targets Chinese users, with scores likely exceeding 60 million. Many large accounts were wrongly flagged. I cannot understand Backpack’s decision to backstab the Chinese community,” said KOL Lin Shan Lynn, extremely dissatisfied.

Meta Ape posted on X explaining that his multi-account operations were mainly for arbitrage trading, as multi-account use improves capital efficiency and avoids hitting the rebate ratio limits. He dismissed the idea of “playing cat and mouse” with the project team, even proactively discussing his multi-account strategies with them.

But the final outcome left him deeply disappointed. “I don’t blame the project for the price gap, I’ve seen worse projects. It’s not a big deal. I accept the risks,” said Meta Ape. “But according to the industry rules, if you can’t create any economic value, at least show some emotional respect, right? Yet their choice was to ignore, not care, and disrespect. That made me feel like a fool.”

In response to widespread dissatisfaction and criticism, Backpack’s Chinese community lead Claire issued a statement on the 24th, explaining that the strict “witch” policy was driven by the compliance team’s adherence to regulations in Europe and America. She announced that a申诉 channel would be opened. Users operating three or fewer accounts on a single device and flagged as “witches” would be reviewed manually, and over 50% of their points would be returned. Additionally, the team plans to initiate targeted token buybacks on the secondary market in the coming days to compensate eligible users.

However, the negative perception of Backpack’s “malicious” behavior has already spread. Its token BP has plummeted from launch, falling below $0.20, with a single-day drop of over 33%. Its FDV is now only $200 million, far below previous market expectations.

Once trust is fundamentally broken, the cost to repair it will likely far exceed the gains previously made through fee “harvesting.”