"Crypto Airdrops serve as a rewarding mechanism for loyal users and a means to attract new ones," expressed Chabgpeng Zhao, Binance's founder and CEO, likening them to surprise birthday gifts delivered to your doorstep. In the realm of cryptocurrency, airdrops are a marketing tactic utilized by Web3 companies to incentivize their engaged community or foster adoption by distributing digital tokens directly into wallets.
This piece delves into the essence of airdrops, their distinctions from ICOs and STOs, potential risks associated, and offers simple methods to evade them. Dive in to explore one of the captivating phenomena in the crypto landscape.
Crypto Airdrop: What Is It?
A cryptocurrency airdrop is a marketing campaign launched by Web3-based businesses or startups to boost user adoption or fund their venture.
Here, users can choose to receive a free little amount of virtual cash directly into their wallet or receive it in exchange for performing tiny tasks like retweeting or reposting a company post announcing airdrops. Public awareness campaigns known as "airdrops" are used to promote the company's platform and push for the adoption of new coins or tokens.
The main website of the corporation, social media platforms like Twitter, Discord, and Reddit, or certain cryptocurrency forums like bitcoin.com are typically used for airdrop promotion.
Tokens or cryptocurrency coins can only be deposited into particular wallets based on the Blockchain network and the quantity of currencies held.
A recipient may need to meet certain requirements in order to be eligible for an airdrop. These may include holding a certain amount of coinage or completing certain tasks, like creating a promotional blog post or Twitter thread, reposting the company's project post, growing the network's community base, or boosting impressions and engagement with the project and network.
Crypto Airdrop Types
Standard Airdrop
To be eligible for a regular airdrop, participants only need to indicate that they would like to receive the airdrop; no tasks need to be completed. The user needs to provide a working email address upon registering. This kind of airdrop may be distributed on a first-come, first-served (FCFS) basis and may have time constraints.
They might only have so many coins to give away, thus the amount that each person can receive may be restricted. For instance, RabbitX launched their new coin and attracted a new user base with regular airdrops.
Bounty Airdrop
There may be requirements for participants to fulfill in order to be eligible for bounty airdrops. Some businesses use bounty airdrops as a low-lift marketing tool. Retweeting, producing a blog post promoting the brand, tagging the company's handles in a Twitter thread, joining their Discord channel, or subscribing to their newsletter are some examples of the chores that may be assigned.
Users may have to do activities in order to accrue points. Once they have points, they can use those points to take part in airdrops. An airdrop, for instance, can be availed by a user upon reaching 500 points. Like the Foodie NFT platform, each task has a label with 100 points. To be able to participate in their $75000 airdrop, participants must complete nine 9-step to-do lists, which include following the accounts on social media and tagging friends.
Holder Airdrop
This airdrop is exclusively for people who may possess a particular quantity of existing tokens or hold any existing tokens at all at the time of promotion, as indicated by the word "holder."
Holder airdrops are mostly created by companies as a means of rewarding their most devoted and devoted customers. Users that meet or above a threshold amount determined by the firm may be the only ones rewarded by some airdrops.
Exclusive Airdrop
The exclusive airdrop is specifically intended for some users who might not have any holdings in their wallets, as implied by the name. This kind of airdrop is determined by non-token characteristics such as time invested in the project, funds spent on non-token activities, and forum participation level, rather than the user's total coin holdings.
For instance, bridging, staking, or swapping the token.
A more centralized method of rewarding users closer to the project is through exclusive airdrop. Take Uniswap's airdrop of 400 UNI tokens, which is available to all of its loyal users regardless of their holding status.
Raffle Airdrop
Raffle airdrops use a lottery-style system. Here, businesses can encourage users to acquire lottery tickets and disclose the quantity of airdrops they are willing to provide. There are numerous ways to obtain raffle tickets, including gathering points, merely expressing interest, and possessing certain tokens.
This leads to a higher number of participants than the organization needs to offer in terms of airdrops. As a result, there's a lottery where a few wallets are chosen at random to get the prize.
Game-Changing Airdrops
Look
Look is a token that the Ethereum-based NFT trading platform LooksRare launched to grow its user base. Looksrare joined a genre where there is fierce competition. So you give them incentives. A total of 12% of LOOKS's supply was airdropped by LooksRare to anyone who has traded three ETH or more between January and December. It was successful. Within four months, they had a sizable user base.
Scam and Prevention
The main objective of cryptocurrency airdrops is usually to promote. It never looks to raise money. Dusting scams are a type of cryptocurrency fraud where the victim sends bitcoins or tokens in exchange for winning airdrops.
Airdrops are typically incentives that seem too good to be true, making it simple for people to become victims of fraud. Phishing is a sort of airdrop fraud where the con artist seems to be offering users real airdrops. Users are taken to unaffiliated websites in phishing scams, where they are asked to enter their wallet details in order to win the fictitious airdrop. Once individuals connect their wallets with their secret words or keys and their wallets are emptied, the scam is finished.
June 2024, Cryptoniteuae