Apriori Airdrop scandal exposed! 5800 Wallets created to snatch 80% Token before announcement.

Apriori distributed APR tokens on Ethereum and BNB Chain as part of the “Genesis Airdrop.” However, investigators found that approximately 80% of the tokens on BNB Chain were claimed by over 5,800 wallets associated with a cluster. This cluster was created and funded just days before Apriori announced that tokens could be claimed on BNB Chain, raising questions about the legitimacy of the airdrop.

Suspicious operation patterns of 5800 mysterious Wallets

(Source: X)

According to on-chain data, the wallet cluster was created and funded a few days before Apriori publicly announced that its tokens could be claimed on the BNB Chain, raising questions about whether someone was using insider information. Between October 19 and 20, these wallets received small amounts of BNB funding from 13 addresses, enough to execute the Airdrop claim transactions. This unified source and timing of funds is the most typical characteristic of a witch attack.

The 13 wallets for transferring funds have still not been identified. Analysts stated after reviewing the data that these activities occurred before the eligibility criteria were announced on October 22, indicating they had prior knowledge of the airdrop network and timing. This temporal advantage is the most controversial evidence, as normal users could not possibly know the specific details of the airdrop and prepare their wallets in advance of the official announcement.

Further analysis of the top 200 APR holders revealed that almost all holders were newly created between October 5 and 6, with no meaningful trading history, and they participated in almost no on-chain activities aside from receiving tokens. This “clean” wallet history is highly unnatural. Normal crypto user wallets typically have interaction records with DeFi protocols, token swap histories, or NFT trading activities. Wallets with completely no history concentrating on claiming airdrops can almost certainly be determined to have been created specifically for the airdrop.

Among the wallets ranked by holdings, only three wallets seem to belong to real users with transaction records and NFT activity. The trading behaviors and patterns of the other wallets are almost identical, indicating that they may be under automated control or working in coordination. This high consistency is a typical feature of automated script operations, where a single operator or small team uses programs to create wallets in bulk and claim Airdrops in bulk, with all operations following the same logic and timeline.

Suspicious Wallet Cluster Characteristics

Creation Time: October 5-6 (17-18 days before announcement)

Funding Source: 13 main Wallets uniformly distributed BNB (October 19-20)

Quantity Scale: Over 5800 Wallets

Token Proportion: About 80% of the airdrop tokens on the BNB Chain

Activity History: There are almost no other on-chain activities except for receiving airdrops.

Behavior Pattern: Trading time, gas fees, and operation order are highly consistent.

This model indicates that this is an organized witch attack, where the strategy refers to airdrop hunters deploying thousands of wallets to repeatedly claim rewards. However, the timing advantage makes this not just an ordinary witch attack, but more likely involves the leakage of insider information or the participation of insiders.

CZ Investment Background and Team Silence Sparks Controversy

(Source: CoinGecko)

Apriori and its founder Ray Song have not responded to multiple requests for comments. This silence is extremely detrimental following the exposure of the scandal and is often interpreted by the market as acquiescence or inability to refute. Normally, if the project party believes the accusations are unfounded, they should issue a statement to clarify, provide rebuttal evidence, or announce an investigation plan at the first opportunity. Prolonged silence will only allow doubts to fester further.

Investors in Apriori include top institutions in the crypto space such as YZi Labs, Pantera Capital, and Primitive Ventures, whose endorsements have brought a high level of market trust to Apriori. However, this airdrop scandal may have collateral effects on the reputation of these investment institutions. Did investors review the project's airdrop distribution mechanism during their due diligence? Did they require the project team to establish protections against witch attacks? These questions need to be answered.

The startup developed by former engineers from Jump Trading and Citadel Securities raised $30 million with the aim of building an “execution layer” for the on-chain cryptocurrency market, leveraging high-frequency trading strategies to improve efficiency and reduce the impact of maximum extractable value. The team's Wall Street background and technical expertise were once its biggest selling points, but now they have deepened suspicions of internal manipulation. The team, with a background in high-frequency trading, is fully capable of designing and executing complex automated claiming programs.

According to CoinGecko data, the market capitalization of the APR token reached $93 million on its first day of issuance, but has since fallen more than 60% from its all-time high of $0.7396 on the first day of issuance. As of the time of writing, the trading price of the token is less than half of the issuance price. This sharp decline is partly due to profit-taking on the technical side, but more so a sell-off caused by a crisis of trust. When the fairness of the airdrop is questioned, real users will choose to sell immediately, while wallets that secretly received a large number of tokens may also begin to sell off to cash out.

Witch attacks have become a normalized threat in crypto airdrops

The incident has raised questions among people: was the airdrop compromised internally, or manipulated by insiders? Critics within the Monad community have expressed dissatisfaction, as Apriori initially planned to launch its token in the Monad community, but they accused the project of betraying its supporters and eroding trust before the Monad mainnet went live. This sense of betrayal comes from a gap in expectations, as members of the Monad community originally expected to be the primary beneficiaries of the Apriori airdrop, only to find that most of the tokens were taken away by a mysterious wallet cluster.

This incident is reminiscent of the growing scandals in the cryptocurrency space resembling “witch airdrops.” In September this year, the decentralized exchange MYX Finance faced similar accusations, with 100 wallets allegedly linked to its team claiming to hold MYX tokens worth $170 million. Last year, Io.net, which is based on zkSync and Solana, suffered a massive witch attack, where attackers exploited automated wallets and false GPU reports to defraud millions of dollars in rewards.

To protect its token distribution, LayerZero Labs blacklisted hundreds of thousands of suspected witch attack addresses last year. Although this defense measure is effective, it has also sparked controversy over centralized decision-making. The project team decides which addresses are real users and which are witches, and this power itself contradicts the spirit of decentralization. However, if no action is taken, airdrops will be completely plundered by witch attackers, leaving genuine contributors with nothing.

Such attack methods are still difficult to detect and prevent. Analysts warn that such witch attacks have become a recurring problem in the industry, undermining trust in token distribution activities. Although cryptocurrencies are praised for their decentralization, events like the Apriori token allocation indicate shortcomings in fairness and accountability.

Recent Witch Attack Incidents in the Crypto Space

Apriori (October 2025): 5800 Wallets receive 80% BNB Chain Airdrop, suspected internal manipulation

MYX Finance (September 2024): 100 team-related Wallets hold $170 million Token

Io.net (2024): Automated wallets and fake GPU reports defraud millions of dollars

LayerZero (2024): Actively blacklisting hundreds of thousands of suspected witch addresses.

Common Features: Bulk creation of Wallets, unified source of funds, highly consistent operational model, lack of real activity history.

The prevalence of such witch attacks reflects the fundamental flaws in the current airdrop mechanism. Most projects adopt overly simplistic airdrop standards, such as holding specific NFTs, participating in testnets, following social media, etc., which can all be easily met by automated scripts. More complex witch defense mechanisms, such as on-chain behavior analysis, social graph verification, and personality proof systems, while more effective, have high implementation costs and may infringe on user privacy.