The Plasma airdrop ultimately distributed 9,300 $XPL to each participant. Based on the recent high of $1.45, this represents an airdrop reward worth over $13,400 USD – regardless of the initial investment.
This astonishing wealth creation has once again put the spotlight on Founders Fund, a key investor behind the event. Founders Fund , a top-tier VC firm founded by Peter Thiel, has practically solidified its reputation as the crypto world's airdrop treasure trove thanks to its early investments in projects like Starknet, Avail, and Plasma.
Their success is clearly no accident. Behind it lies a clear investment philosophy and decision-making system. So, what lies at the heart of this system? What's the thinking at Founders Fund's decision-makers? After the Plasma explosion, what other projects, aligned with their philosophy and with high airdrop potential, are worth our close attention?
The "Brain" and the "OG": Founders Fund's dual decision-making core
Founders Fund's strong momentum in the crypto field stems from the perfect complementarity of its two core figures: one is the "brain" who provides top-level philosophy and grand narrative, and the other is the "crypto OG" who is responsible for going deep into the front line and ensuring tactical execution.
Peter Thiel: The Brain and Soul of Investing
As the founder and spiritual leader of Founders Fund, Peter Thiel's personal philosophy deeply imbues every investment decision of the fund. The "contrarian thinking" and pursuit of "monopolistic technology," as conveyed in his book "Zero to One," form the cornerstones of Founders Fund's investments. As the godfather of the "PayPal Mafia," Thiel has a long-standing obsession with creating a next-generation financial network independent of traditional systems. This profound perspective dictates that Founders Fund consistently focuses on underlying protocols and infrastructure that can reshape the industry landscape, rather than chasing short-term application trends. He sets the direction for the fund: to seek out teams that are solving the most difficult problems and have the potential to create a new future.
Joey Krug: A Crypto OG on the Front Lines
If Thiel provides the philosophical guidance on "why to invest," then partner Joey Krug addresses the tactical questions of "who to invest" and "how to invest." Krug is a true OG in the crypto world. As the co-founder of the decentralized prediction market Augur, he has real-world experience building and operating a successful DeFi protocol from scratch. Prior to joining Founders Fund, he served as co-CIO at Pantera Capital, where he accumulated extensive crypto investment experience. Krug has emphasized his paramount importance to a team's "shipping velocity," or their ability to consistently transform ideas into products. It is his deep industry background and keen judgment of technical execution that ensures Founders Fund's grand narrative is precisely matched with the most capable teams.
Thiel's top-level design combined with Krug's front-line insights constitute the dual core of Founders Fund's decision-making in the field of encryption, enabling them to grasp the biggest technological waves and identify the "surfers" who are most capable of riding them.
Founders Fund Crypto Investment Doctrine: Portfolio Overview
This table aims to integrate the scattered projects observed by users and the research findings of this report into a structured analytical tool, clearly demonstrating Founders Fund's investment model that prioritizes infrastructure, intervenes early, and targets high-potential companies.
Alpha List: Potential projects worth paying attention to
Based on the above investment dogma, we can clearly screen out the next batch of projects with high airdrop potential in the Founders Fund portfolio.
1. Polymarket: The King of Prediction Markets
- Project Introduction : As the undisputed leader in decentralized prediction markets, Polymarket allows users to trade on the outcomes of global hot topics, such as elections, economic data, and regulatory approvals. It has become a crucial hub for obtaining information and identifying trends in the crypto world and beyond, with consistently high daily trading volume and monthly active users.
- Airdrop Expectations : Polymarket's token issuance is practically an open secret. First, as a decentralized protocol requiring community governance and value capture, tokens are essential components of its closed ecosystem. Second, and most crucially, its filing with the US SEC explicitly mentions "warrants," which are typically considered in investment agreements to grant early investors the right to receive tokens in the future. Recent positive regulatory signals from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have cleared a major hurdle for its token issuance.
- Reasons to Watch : The community generally expects Polymarket's airdrop to follow the model of Starknet and Avail, with large-scale retroactive airdrops targeted at early, deeply engaged users of the platform. As a project with a mature product, a large user base, and a clear business model, the launch of its token will be a highly anticipated realization of value.
2. Sentient: At the forefront of AI+Crypto, a value carrier for grand narratives
- Project Introduction : Sentient's vision is ambitious: to build a decentralized, open network for artificial general intelligence (AGI). In an era where AI computing power and models are increasingly monopolized by tech giants, Sentient seeks to create a permissionless, community-owned AI economy through blockchain technology.
- Airdrop Expectations : For a protocol aiming to build a global decentralized network, a token is essential. It's not only a core tool for incentivizing AI model contributors, computing power providers, and data validators, but also the sole vehicle for network governance and value distribution. The $85 million seed round provides ample ammunition for building a vast ecosystem and executing large-scale community incentive programs, including airdrops.
- Reasons to Watch : Sentient perfectly aligns with Founders Fund's philosophy of investing in "revolutionary technologies." Its airdrop will go beyond simply generating wealth; it represents the initial distribution of ownership in the future decentralized AI network. For users who are optimistic about the AI + Crypto space, early participation in its ecosystem and contributing to its network could yield extremely high returns.
3. N1 (formerly Layer N): The next generation of financial L2, re-emerging the value of infrastructure
- Project Description : N1 is a high-performance Rollup network (L2) designed specifically for financial applications. Its goal is not to be a one-size-fits-all general-purpose chain, but rather to provide extreme performance and efficiency for financial scenarios such as high-frequency trading and derivatives settlement through a customized architecture.
- Airdrop Expectations : As a project led by Founders Fund, N1 has garnered significant attention since its inception. L2 public chains have established an industry standard for issuing tokens and using airdrops to incentivize early users, developers, and ecosystem projects. Tokens are not only used for decentralized governance but also serve as a key tool for capturing network value and competing with competitors like Starknet and Arbitrum for liquidity and users.
- Reasons to Watch : N1 represents the professionalization and refinement of the L2 ecosystem. Following the successful path of Starknet, N1's airdrop is likely to be closely tied to the depth of interaction on its testnet and the early adoption of the future mainnet. For users familiar with L2 interactions, this is an opportunity not to be missed.
4. Opensea: The pending giant airdrop
- Project Introduction : As the "OG" and founder of the NFT market, Opensea has practically defined the entire sector. Founders Fund participated in its seed round as early as 2018, demonstrating its foresight in the "digital ownership economy."
- Airdrop Expectations : The community has been calling for Opensea to issue a governance token for several years. This is primarily driven by the fact that competitors like LooksRare and Blur, which have rapidly risen through "vampire attacks" and token airdrops, need a powerful tool to reward their vast user base and incentivize future platform loyalty. Issuing a token to achieve community-based governance and value sharing is considered an inevitable choice.
- Reasons to Watch : Opensea's airdrop opportunity is unlike any new project. It doesn't rely on testnet interaction, but rather has the potential to be a retroactive airdrop of unprecedented scale. Reward criteria may include years of transaction history, total transaction volume, NFT holdings, and collections created. While long anticipated, its potential scale makes it a "sleeping giant" that every NFT enthusiast cannot ignore.
5. Infrastructure Matrix: Caldera, Citrea, Helius
In addition to the three star projects mentioned above, there is also a group of "water sellers" hidden in Founders Fund's investment portfolio - key infrastructure that provides core tools and services for the entire crypto ecosystem, and they also have an inherent need to issue tokens.
- Caldera : A "Rollup as a Service" (RaaS) platform that allows developers to deploy their own Rollup chains with a single click. With the rise of "app-chain" technology, Caldera is poised to become the "AWS" of the future blockchain world, and the potential for its platform token is enormous.
- Citrea : Focused on Layer 2 solutions for the Bitcoin ecosystem. With the Bitcoin ecosystem's recovery, Layer 2 projects that bring programmability and scalability to the Bitcoin network are becoming a focus of market attention. Issuing tokens to incentivize ecosystem development and ensure network security is a necessary step in their development.
- Helius : A leading infrastructure provider for the Solana ecosystem. They provide key services to developers, such as APIs and nodes. While primarily focused on B2B operations, many core infrastructure providers will eventually share the value and governance of the protocol with the broader ecosystem by issuing governance tokens.
Conclusion
In a market fatigued by fleeting meme narratives and re-searching for sustainable value, Founders Fund's investment playbook offers a clear, proven path. It reminds us that projects truly committed to building underlying technologies and solving core problems, navigating the tumultuous hype cycle, are the foundation for ultimately surviving bull and bear markets and accumulating value.
Following the smart money is essentially following an effective strategy for discovering long-term value. This list provides a clear direction for research and participation. However, in the crypto world, where opportunities and risks coexist, DYOR (Do Your Own Research) should always be the first principle before participating in any project.
