Note: The following content is adapted from the speech of a Biteye colleague at the airdrop strategy sharing meeting. All airdrop benefits are shared from personal real experiences.
Airdrop, a word that most crypto users have seen, may be the easiest way to make money, but it may also be the fastest way to ruin your health.
The debate over the pros and cons of airdrops has been going on for two or three years, from "equal distribution" to "minimum living security" to "checking witches" and "points"...
Whether you like this model or not, it has a profound impact on many projects in the blockchain industry.
On September 17, 2020, UNISWAP conducted an airdrop with a minimum of 400 tokens, which was worth up to $16,000. The only requirement for claiming the airdrop was to have used the protocol.
For users, a successful airdrop will be called "Mr. X", and a failed airdrop will be called "Mr. X who was counter-emptied".
For a project, a successful airdrop can earn the community’s worship: “The founder deserves to be enshrined in the imperial temple!”, while a bad airdrop may lead to the angry community digging out the last eight digits of the ID number.
Regardless of one’s opinion on airdrops, there is one question that is repeatedly raised after each airdrop:
It’s 202x already, can I still get the airdrop?
What causes people to ask questions repeatedly is nothing more than the decreasing airdrop shares, increasingly strict witch rules, and the plummeting coin prices after listing.
To this end, the following will take 15 minutes to review the main airdrop projects in 2024 based on the answer to the question "Can airdrops still be taken?" (The following content is excerpted from the speech of the senior brother at the Biteye airdrop strategy sharing meeting)
To make it easier for everyone to understand, I will focus on "hot events and tracks, supplemented by time nodes" .
In 2024, there are three major hot events and tracks:
On January 10, the Bitcoin ETF was approved , and Inscription was listed on the three major exchanges. Founder Casey bet that if the market value of the newly launched Inscription is less than $1 billion, he will "commit hara-kiri on the live broadcast";
On March 13, Ethereum Cancun upgraded , L2 transaction fees were reduced by 90%, and various re-staking assets followed Blast’s lead in launching staking points;
On March 18, the price of Solana broke through US$210 , and it has risen 20 times since the FTX crash at the end of 2022. It has become a paradise for MEME coins and driven the DePIN track.
01 Bitcoin Track
Let’s start with Bitcoin. The main airdrop projects in the Bitcoin track in 2024 are: Babylon Pioneer NFT, Pizza Airdrop and OKX Wallet Drops.
1.1 Babylon Pioneer NFT
Babylon's NFT is definitely the fastest "Airdrop" in 2024! When they were working with okxweb3, they had already hinted that there would be rewards, and it was very simple to get NFT. Just deposit the sbtc used for testing into the test pool and then bind the EVM wallet (to receive NFT).
difficulty
1. First of all, it is very difficult to get water on the test network. Most players have not received it and have been stuck at the stage of getting water; 2. Should we guard against witches? I got some water at first, but it was only enough for 10 accounts. Then I found a water dealer in the off-site group and bought 100u of SBTC (I forgot the exact amount), which was enough for about 200 accounts;
After thinking it over again and again, I finally did not consider anti-Witch measures, because first of all, the BTC ecosystem rarely checks for witches, and secondly, when the faucet is not enough, it is normal to share some test coins.
Since only the first 100,000 users will receive rewards, the entire event time is relatively tight, about two days. The main workload is to distribute test network tokens. I completed about 200 accounts and got about 200 NFTs.
Benefit Assessment
The ROI of this activity was off the charts. I sold about 100 NFTs at an average price of 160u in the OTC and OKX markets, making a profit of 15,000u. I didn't sell the rest. Currently, the price of one NFT has dropped below 30u. I feel that I should sell all of them during the fomo stage.
1.2 OKX Drops
Okxweb3's BD connects with higher-quality project parties every week to seek whitelist benefits for the community. The value of some whitelists is quite high.
Tinfun NFT whitelist, Bitsmiley smiley whitelist, INK whitelist, these are all earnings for order numbers over $1,000, and there is absolutely no cost to participate.
However, as the number of participants increases, okxweb3 has also taken measures to reduce the winning rate of "Luzi".
They stratified the EVM addresses. Wallets with rich DEFI and NFT behaviors are premium accounts with a much higher chance of winning than ordinary accounts, while the winning rate of "robot" accounts is lower than that of ordinary accounts.
Therefore, the best strategy is for users with high-quality account resources to participate in every issue and get free money stably. (Whether the wallet tiered lottery will be used in BTC wallet and Sol wallet is still uncertain)
I saw the Bitsmiley event at that time. Since the BTC ecosystem was hot at that time and the cost of participation was very low, I decided to participate.
Benefit Assessment
1. Bitsmiley used BTC wallets to draw prizes, and the verification required about $10 in BTC. I divided it into 100 wallets, and the overall winning probability was more than 1/20, and I was on the whitelist of 6;
2. A single NFT can be sold for $2,000 at its peak, with a total profit of nearly $1WU. (This deployment of the OKX lottery gave me a big surprise in the BTC ecosystem, see below).
1.3 Pizza
Pizza is a meme coin officially issued by Unisat. It has good material selection and is very popular.
Unitsat announced that any wallet that has interacted (transferred) with the unisat wallet within three months of the snapshot time can receive a minimum living allowance. In addition, using unisat services, having points, unisat og, etc. will receive higher rewards.
I mentioned earlier that I participated in OKX drops and was allocated 100 wallets. In May, I wanted to participate in Solv's BTC staking, so I planned to collect the BTC from those 100 wallets for staking. As luck would have it, almost every wallet had a transfer record, so I ran into the unisat airdrop standard.
Benefit Assessment
The minimum guarantee number is 100pizza per wallet. After all the airdrops are distributed, the value of the single number reaches 600 dollars and the highest point reaches 800 dollars. The income is about 80 wallets*550=4wu.
In general, airdrops in the BTC ecosystem often occur within a period of time after the BTC price breaks through a new high, that is, "liquidity overflow".
It has the characteristics of high threshold (gas and interaction difficulty on the BTC chain), high return (order number income), and low requirements (no large-scale witch investigation).
But the value of airdrops lies in expectations, that is, selling midway often yields the greatest profit, while if you "hold on" to the end the feast often turns into leftovers.
02ETH Ecosystem
Then there is the ETH ecosystem. The main airdrop projects in 2024 are: Friendtech, Stark, Zksync, and Layerzero.
2.1 Friendtech
FT is a phenomenal socialfi at the end of 2023. I started to participate in it a month later. I did not hold a KOL account, but chose matrix farm.
However, the process was not smooth. Due to changes in team rules, it was necessary to transfer positions (and a 10% interest rate was required for buying and selling).
Eventually, more than 5 eth were invested, and the matrix could leverage three times. The matrix finally had a portfolio value of less than 20 eth, and the entire wear and tear was within 1 eth.
Benefit Assessment
The airdrop started in May 2024, and I finally got 15,000 points. I sold 2,500 points at 4u on whales market pro, and sold the remaining points at 1-2u, with a final profit of about 3wu.
As for the cost, less than one eth was worn out, but the remaining eth increased from 1800u to a high of 3500u. I think the cost of mining ft is actually negative.
2.2 Stark
Stark airdrop is the third coin issuance project among the four major L2 projects. The reputation of the airdrop is different from the unanimous praise of the first two. Stark airdrop can be said to have mixed reviews.
The more controversial point of Stark is the one-size-fits-all approach to on-chain balances, which means that any wallet with less than 0.005 ETH will be vetoed.
But other criteria, such as being active for at least 3 months and trading $100, are easier to achieve.
Stark's standard caused a group of users who deposited ETH in on-chain Defi projects to be "backstabbed" and lose all their money.
In addition, there is Trustgo’s witch review, which has identified a number of wallets with similar on-chain activities. However, since Trustgo’s witch library is not public and the witch standards are not public, the relatively centralized anti-witch approach has also been opposed by players.
But for those players who meet the requirements, Starknet is definitely an airdrop from Eat Well and is worthy of the title of the Four Heavenly Kings.
The minimum number of low-quality accounts is 500 coins, and the profit from selling them in time after the opening is about 1,100 dollars. The number of short positions for slightly better accounts is between 1,000 and 3,600 coins, and the profit for a single account can reach 2,000u-8,000u. In total, more than 1 million addresses received airdrops, which is also a large scale.
The top reward is 10,000 coins for a single number, or 20,000 dollars for a single number. This condition is quite difficult, and few people can achieve it.
Benefit Assessment
I invested in about 50 accounts in Stark (I lost some accounts because of insufficient monthly activity and balance). Each account had between 650-3600 coins, totaling 50,000 coins, and had a profit of about 10wu when it opened.
In short, the Stark airdrop is definitely a win for the multi-minimum-security numbers as well, because the minimum-security standards are very relaxed.
0.005ETH balance + 3 months of monthly activity + 100u amount, you can get a return of 1000u with a cost of less than 5 dollars.
Although the rewards for top-level premium accounts are more than 10 times those for low-income accounts, the difficulty and cost are too high, and the cost-effectiveness is insufficient.
It should be noted that the Stark airdrop also rewards the ECMP plan, which is the contributor plan. Coupled with the inhumane one-size-fits-all approach to balances, some users have suspected “insider trading”.
Unfortunately, the Stark ecosystem was unable to maintain TVL and user activity after issuing coins. Later, although the airdrops in the ecosystem such as Zklend and Ekubo were good Defi projects, the coin prices and airdrop returns were very poor.
2.3 Zksync
However, in the second half of the year, the airdrops of Zksync and L0 completely shattered the expectations of the airdrop track.
Zksync innovatively introduced a scoring method that multiplies the time-weighted TVL amount by a bonus multiplier, making the amount deposited in the zksync protocol the most important indicator for measuring airdrops. This is contrary to the previous user perception of monthly activity, transaction amount, tx number, etc.
In addition, zk also rewarded some niche zk native token holders and some NFT collection holders, making the entire airdrop standard full of "insider trading" doubts.
But I personally think that the zksync standard is a reward for real Defi players. Many real players have received airdrops greater than 50,000. This zk airdrop is undoubtedly a reward for high-quality accounts.
Benefit Assessment
I only have tens of thousands of zk in my main account, and the other accounts have only a few thousand. Moreover, half of the accounts did not receive the airdrop because of insufficient funds, so I only received 80,000 zk in total.
And because the opening price was not ideal, I did not sell it and have been stuck until now. The cost was not low and I put in a lot of effort.
Some players who have been grinding for 3 years have gained nothing, and even some studios with outdated strategies have not made any profit. This airdrop is undoubtedly disappointing to most people.
2.4 Layerzero
L0 airdrop is worse than ZK, it is shit in shit. The airdrop share is extremely low, the conditions are strict, and there is also an unpleasant experience of "witch hunting" reporting, I don't want to talk about it.
Benefit Assessment
The income of L0 is very low, most accounts just get back their investment, large accounts may get 2 times the income, I don’t even have an account with a single number of 1000u. Then L0 carried out a second wave of airdrops, the effect can only be said to be unsatisfactory.
In general, the ETH ecosystem is still a gathering place for various airdrop projects, but the rules of airdrops are gradually improved, witch checks are becoming stricter, and the income from orders is unlikely to return to what it was before.
From the past "multiple accounts era" to today's "high-quality accounts" era, it has been shown that airdrops have shifted from "0 for free" to "investment".
03Solana Ecosystem
Finally, let’s talk about the Solana ecosystem. The main airdrop projects in 2024 are: Jupiter and Wormhole.
3.1 WEN
In January, a meme coin issuance trial was conducted before the $JUP token was launched, and 70% of WEN was airdropped and evenly distributed to more than 1 million Solana wallet addresses.
The airdrop targets include Jupiter users, Ovols NFT holders, Blue Chip NFT holders, Genesis Saga NFT holders, and mockJUP test users.
Benefit Assessment
Each address received an average of 643,652 tokens, and depending on the time of sale, the order number could earn between $50 and $100.
3.2 JUP
The JUP airdrop went live on January 31st, and as of November 2nd, 2023, more than 950,000 wallets that directly interacted with Jupiter were eligible to participate in the first airdrop, of which 336,000 wallets received 200 JUP.
The minimum airdrop guarantee for JUP is 200 tokens, which is about $120 USD. In addition, OG BONUS, trading volume, continuous use, whether it is still used in 2023 (during the bear market), and whether the limit order function is used are additional bonuses. JUP has marked and excluded robot accounts.
As new players entering the circle in 2022, most players who have tried the Solana ecosystem have basically used Jupiter. However, from a personal point of view, most players’ tokens are below 500 in a single wallet. Because the Sol ecosystem has fallen into a silent period of nearly a year after the collapse of FTX at the end of 2022, it is indeed difficult to insist on using Jup.
Benefit Assessment
I have 10 Solana wallets that have all used Jupiter, but only one main wallet received more coins, a total of 10 $Wen minimum guarantee (sold for $800) and 10 $Jup minimum guarantee (sold for $2,000).
From the perspective of ROI, the Jupiter series has a very high return ratio because the interaction cost of the Solana ecosystem is very low. However, if players who are just trying it out only take the minimum living allowance, the absolute income is not high, so it is a very good pig's trotter meal.
For multi-account players, as long as they can avoid robot censorship, the JUP airdrop is definitely a victory for the low-income multi-account players. From the airdrop rules, there is no obvious rat trading rule setting.
3.3 Wormhole Airdrop
The main reason is the large amount of financing, backed by Solana, compared with Layerzero, which is relatively less volatile and has a small number of qualified addresses (40w+ qualified addresses).
Wormhole examined users’ full-chain activities, set a minimum interaction threshold of around $1,500, and rewarded early users, users who continued to use the network, and users who continued to use the network during the bear market.
Of course, Wormhole also has anti-sybil measures. In addition to the common source of funds analysis, Wormhole uses behavioral clustering analysis to identify clusters (https://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0476) and analyze spam transactions.
Benefit Assessment
In addition, some Solana and EVM wallets also received a small amount of airdrops, but the official did not disclose very specific criteria, and it is not clear why some accounts did not receive airdrops.
In summary, the Wormhole airdrop has a high ROI because there are few people but a lot of money. However, the project's anti-witch and specific airdrop standards are not very transparent, and some users who did not receive the airdrop questioned the opacity of the airdrop.
In general, the Solana ecosystem is still a capital game, that is, only projects with a good investment background have the possibility of making money through airdrops. In contrast, other airdrop projects on Solana have extremely low returns.
04 Summary and Outlook
Judging from the overall trend, there was little controversy surrounding “insider trading” in airdrops such as Op and Arbitrum in 2022 and 2023.
Their airdrop standards are relatively "natural" and "normal". Even if there are some projects that reward NFT collections such as Galxe and ZKBridge, those NFTs are all well-known collections synthesized for tasks, such as "Galaxy Girl" and "Panda King".
The operation of insider trading is limited to knowing the snapshot time in advance and selling the NFT in time after the snapshot. Normal players will not be affected too much as long as they hold the NFT.
However, judging from airdrops such as zk and l0, the standards are already difficult to guess. These projects always reward some "inexplicable" tokens and NFT communities, and it is difficult for ordinary players with information gaps to prepare in advance.
Therefore, the strategy for the EVM airdrop track needs to undergo a certain shift, and the focus should no longer be entirely on the EVM track.
Future EVM Airdrop Strategies
1. Defi income
(Re)staking projects or RWA stablecoin projects and L2 projects are combined with Defi projects to kill two birds with one stone, earning 10% or higher apy and points income. This is suitable for large funds seeking stability. In order to pursue higher points income, you can participate in the pt gameplay, which involves more intense gaming.
For example, in the Stone project around May, you can first pledge eth into stone, then cross-chain into the Scroll chain, buy pt, and sell it at the end of June, so you can get Stone points for free without loss or even profit. If you want to be safe, you can split queenstone to get stable income and points.
This series of operations interacts with the Stone+Layerzero+Scroll project, and you can get double points for Stone and Scroll. This is a typical example of killing two birds with one stone.
There are many similar examples, for example:
Transfer ezETH to Linea across chains and deposit it into Mitosis. This series of operations interacts with four projects: Renzo+Hyperlane (cross-chain)+Mitosis+Linea.
The above example is for points. If you want apy income, you can consider stablecoin/RWA projects such as usde/Usual or Anzen.
2. Create and maintain an account
Although EVM has not seen any new airdrop projects that are eye-catching, some testnet projects now have wallet requirements for receiving water, such as Initia requires 20 Gitcoin points to receive water.
There are also some projects that give bonuses to old wallets, for example, Particle gives extra points to old accounts with tx.
3. Alpha Project, an Imaginative Track
At present, the proportion of alpha in the base ecosystem is larger, although base does not necessarily issue coins; Superchain with Optimism as its core is also a potential narrative because it does not actually need excessive L2.
Turning to other tracks
1. BTC track
For the BTC track, a wave of inscriptions has been hyped, and there is still a lot of room for growth. In 2024, BTC has already produced big names such as RSIC/DOG/PIZZA/Bitsmiley/Babylon NFT. The important feature of these big names is "passive income", as well as reference tx and held assets.
Therefore, the current strategy is to use wallets such as unisat, wizz, or websites such as gennidata to mint some special assets, such as rune 0/BRC20 assets, or go to the marketplace to buy hot assets such as pizza/sats/ordi/rsic.
After configuring the account, there will be many opportunities to participate in new projects in the BTC ecosystem at low cost (because you can get the whitelist)
2. Solana Track
Solana is a capital-rich track, and the foundation provides greater support for outstanding projects. Solana has long been called the "ETH killer". According to this way of thinking, successful applications on the ETH chain should also be available on Solana, such as Lido-Jito on Solana. For Jito airdrop, you only need to stake 1 sol to get a return of tens of thousands of US dollars.
There is also opensea/Blur-Magiceden on Solana, and Safe-Squads on Solana that has not issued any tokens. The number of Solana users is still relatively small compared to the EVM chain, so there are still great opportunities.
3. Ton track
The Ton track is a very contradictory track. On the one hand, it is a track with a very low threshold and suitable for retail investors.
Different from the EVM/BTC ecosystem, you only need a tg number and a very small amount of funds to participate in the TON ecosystem; but on the other hand, it is almost impossible for retail investors to make big money from it.
Because of the existence of mass adoption, there are a large number of players in the TON ecosystem, in the millions. The airdrop order number may only be a few hundred dollars, and it seems that a retail investor with ten accounts cannot make a lot of money.
However, batch multiple accounts have extremely high requirements for device/IP/account risk control management. Retail investors with no operating experience are likely to lose half of their accounts in a short period of time.
But for studios with experience and digital resources, since 90% of the studios are still in the EVM/SOL track, these TON track studios are likely to be able to get the huge profits of the first wave of crabs. However, I don’t think retail investors have much chance in this track.
4. Move Ecosystem
The Move ecosystem has been quite active recently, with SUI hitting new highs and APT returning to the $10 mark.
It is worth noting that the SUI ecosystem has also seen a large airdrop called Deepbook: you only need to stake or interact with related staking defi protocols to qualify, with order numbers ranging from tens of U to hundreds of U.
Similarly, the APT Foundation has reserved some tokens for future airdrop rounds. The way to do this is to stake on APT or interact with staking protocols such as Amnis and wait for the reward.
The new favorite of the Move language is undoubtedly Movement. Currently, Movement has already opened a series of test network tasks for all the hardworking people.
However, it should be noted that the studio's automated scripts are relatively mature, and manual players need to focus on winning in the number of tasks completed and the quality of characters and props obtained rather than pursuing subsistence allowances in bulk.
Risk warning: The above is for information sharing only, not investment advice. Readers are requested to comply with local laws and regulations.
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