Airdrop Hunters: Still Worth It?
The airdrop game has evolved over the ages. While the concept might sound straightforward—distributing free tokens to a specific group of people—airdrops have a nuanced role in the broader blockchain ecosystem.
Now in our 3rd cycle, airdrops have become ways to secure early adoption by test users, boost coin visibility by increasing wallet holders and marketing exclusivity. Everybody is jealous of their friend who struck it big with a timely airdrop.
Let’s dive back a bit.
In the mission to decentralize ownership, airdrops make a whole lot of sense. More coins, more power to the people.
The first notable airdrop occurred in 2014 when the AuroraCoin project distributed coins to Icelandic citizens to promote the adoption of a national cryptocurrency.
This initiative highlighted the potential of airdrops to catalyze community involvement and project visibility.
We’re starting to see airdrops fall into four major categories:
1) Your Standard Airdrop
You, a lucky crypto user, happened to plug your wallet in the right place at the right time. Back in the day, this was on some obscure Twitter thread where people would actually airdrop you coins just for commenting your wallet and reposting. Nowadays, not so much.
2) Bounties Airdrop
Rather than hunting for people, you’re hunting for treasure. Really a missed opportunity to call it Booty Airdrops, arrr…
Participants receive tokens in exchange for tasks like posting on social media, giving up your email, convincing your friends to sign on and blast your referral link. Practically a modern day treasure hunter!
3) Holder Airdrop
You, a crypto user, hold some specific coin at some predetermined time. As a reward for your loyalty, boom! Here’s some more of this other coin. Typically these occur within the same ecosystem and on the same blockchain for what smart token allocators like to call “strategic synergy”.
4) Exclusive Airdrop
Insiders only! This ones for the cool kids club of crypto. If you know, you know type stuff. These are the people who are builders, investors, early adopters. These are the people who participate in dark pools, fund seed rounds for new projects and get new tokens before you’ve even so much as heard about it.
Free treasure ain’t always free though. Many times, airdrops have hidden malicious smart contracts designed to empty out wallets. In other instances, they also just mess up the tokenomics. Ask the US government, you can only issue so much free money before it all goes out of whack.
With all that said, is it still worth it to be an airdrop hunter? I say no.
