Offchain reward engine that publishes a per-recipient reward file for every merkle root it pushes to a named Distributor contract, opens a 1-2 hour onchain dispute window before rewards become claimable, and takes its 3% out of the deposited budget rather than on top of it. Strongest on if someone disputes their number, can anyone outside the vendor recompute it? (9/10): READ ON https://docs.merkl.xyz/merkl-mechanisms/technical-overview.md (2026-08-17): 'At regular intervals — potentially different from the computation intervals — the Merkl Engine generates a merkle tree from all processed campaigns, compresses it into a single merkle root, and pushes that root onchain to the **Merkl… Weakest on what exactly stops a farm from eating this budget, and what happens when it flags the wrong person? (8/10): MERKL RUNS NO PROPRIETARY SYBIL DETECTOR — it hands the buyer the filter and publishes exactly what the filter can do. READ ON https://docs.merkl.xyz/merkl-mechanisms/customization-options.md (2026-08-17): '### Blacklisting — You can exclude specific addresses from receiving rewards. Published price: READ ON https://docs.merkl.xyz/distribute-with-merkl/fee-model (2026-08-17): "Merkl's fees are deducted directly from the tokens deposited into the campaign." — "Standard campaign fee: 3% of distributed incentives" — "Airdrop discount: JSON-based airdrops are…
Incentive Distribution
Incentive distribution platforms evaluated on whether an outsider can recompute a disputed allocation, who holds the budget and can still edit the list after publication, what has already gone wrong on the machinery, and what is written down about sybil defence.
Ranked on 4 published criteria weighted 30/28/22/20, which set goal alignment — 30 of the 86 points. The rest: regional access 20, evidence depth 18, ease of use 10, institutional trust 8. Profile match is shown in breakdowns but carries no weight.
What matters most before choosing in this category
Weighted on recomputable allocation (30), budget control after publication (28), incident and operator record (22), and sybil defence in writing (20). The heaviest is whether someone outside the vendor can re-derive a disputed number: eight of the nine publish no contest path at all, and the one appeal route that exists is an unbounded support ticket the same terms then disclaim. The sybil finding is starker — six of nine market a named defence and none publish a removal count or a sybil report for a real campaign. Advertised integrations are not scored anywhere.
Weighted on recomputable allocation (30), budget control after publication (28), incident and operator record (22), and sybil defence in writing (20). The heaviest is whether someone outside the vendor can re-derive a disputed number: eight of the nine publish no contest path at all, and the one appeal route that exists is an unbounded support ticket the same terms then disclaim. The sybil finding is starker — six of nine market a named defence and none publish a removal count or a sybil report for a real campaign. Advertised integrations are not scored anywhere.
Expert review and scoring weights
How this category is reviewed
Reviewed on if someone disputes their number, can anyone outside the vendor recompute it?, who is holding my budget, who can still change the list, and what comes back to me?, what has already gone wrong on this machinery, and who is actually running it today?, and what exactly stops a farm from eating this budget, and what happens when it flags the wrong person?.