Apriori APR Airdrop Under Scrutiny as Suspected Sybil Attack Claims 80% of Tokens

An on-chain analysis has revealed that the recent airdrop for Apriori's APR token was heavily compromised, with 5,800 interconnected wallets claiming 80% of the tokens distributed on the BNB Chain. The token distribution took place on October 23, 2025, but the wallets were funded with small amounts of BNB between October 19 and 20, days before Apriori publicly announced the airdrop eligibility criteria on October 22. This timing suggests the attackers had prior knowledge of the distribution's technical details, pointing to a potential industrial-scale Sybil attack.

Apriori, a trading infrastructure startup backed by $30 million in venture capital from investors like YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), Pantera Capital, and HashKey Capital, faces significant reputational damage. The project, developed by former engineers from Jump Trading, Coinbase, and Citadel Securities, saw its APR token debut with a market value of $93 million, but it has since fallen 60% from its all-time high of $0.7396 on launch day. Analysts noted that the 5,800 wallets received funds from just 13 source wallets and had no prior transaction history, indicating coordinated, automated control.

Neither Apriori, its founder Ray Song, nor its investors responded to requests for comment. The incident mirrors other Sybil attacks in the crypto sector, such as those involving MYX Finance, zkSync, and Io.net, underscoring ongoing challenges in ensuring fair token distributions.