Token Distribution Tool Aims To Make Airdrops More Efficient

Magna, a token distribution infrastructure platform, is releasing an open-sourced airdrop tool that can handle up to 9,000 transactions simultaneously.

The head of product at Magna, Nitesh Gupta, told Blockworks that the new airdrop tool was similar to the Disperse app which launched in 2018.

“Since it was launched, nobody has created anything better,” Gupta said.

After noticing that there was an opportunity in the token distribution market, the team at Magna wanted to build a more efficient airdrop tool.

The latest product, with a meme-inspired name, wentokens.xyz, is part of Magna’s vision to improve performance in low-level optimizations. The tool is said to be “30% cheaper and can handle more transactions” than its rival.

“The approach I took is quite similar to Disperse’s relatively standard airdrop,” said Harrison Leggio, protocol engineering lead at Magna. “Where we differ is that I utilize inline assembly to skip…unnecessary EVM opcodes that plain solidity code would be subject to.”

Low-level optimizations explained

A low-level optimization is simply a lower-level programming language — meaning that the written code is closer to the machine.

Similar to how hedge funds regularly use software engineered in the C programming language instead of Python, a growing number of cryptocurrency projects are choosing to use languages such as yul or huff — which are more closely mapped to the bytecode on the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM), Gupta said.

“When people write at a lower level, it can be more optimal,” Gupta said. “I would say that lower-level languages tend to be harder to write and harder to read and reason — but they’re actually simpler and there’s less things going on.”

Patrick Collins, the founder of Cyfrin, a security auditing firm, has previously noted that he hopes that more cryptocurrency projects will eventually begin writing in lower-level languages as it will help significantly reduce gas prices. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see popular projects re-written in lower-level languages in the future,” Collins said.

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