It's not easy to invest in this period of decline... While bitcoin and other cryptos have fallen sharply, one of the tips for positioning yourself without losing too many feathers may still be to seek out "aidrops", these operations in which emerging projects give tokens away for free to users to support their development.
We have selected five projects that caught our eye and that could make use of them in the coming weeks or months. Here are the best ideas and practices for accessing them.
But before discovering our selection, we'd like to take a look back at the philosophy behind airdrops, how they work, as well as their benefits for projects and users.
Airdrops are widely used by crypto projects because they help attract their first users and federate a community around them. This is the lifeblood of crypto. Many projects have broken their teeth on this point. "A token is not always essential to make a protocol work, like Ethereum's Layer 2 (L2) for example, which could have kept the ether (ETH) as a token, but we've seen that it's difficult to build a community without a token," points out Jimmy Ragosa, advisor to the Sismo project. For example, L2 Optimism launched its OP token at the beginning of June.
For projects, using an airdrop is also a way of accelerating the decentralisation of their governance. Each token represents a right to vote on future decisions, giving the community the power to influence.
One of the best-known airdrops is that of Uniswap. In September 2020, the decentralised exchange platform distributed 400 UNI tokens to anyone who had used its protocol at least once in the past. At the time of the operation, the airdrop was worth around $1,500. But a few months later, in April 2021, it peaked at more than $50,000!
Other projects also made news, such as DyDx. In August 2021, this decentralised derivatives platform sent 310.75 DYDX tokens to everyone who had used its services at least once. Between August and September, the value of the airdrop rose from around $1,000 to more than $8,000. And these cases are far from isolated.
But the "blessed" days of massive, easy-to-obtain airdrops are over. While these operations still exist, the eligibility conditions have been tightened up considerably in response to certain abuses. Many projects have been faced with situations where users have used several addresses to multiply the rewards.
These practices threaten projects because these opportunistic users often resell their tokens in the process, helping to drive down the token's price as soon as it is launched... The Ribbon project was hit at the end of 2021 with one player (Divergence Ventures fund) who had created dozens of addresses that met the minimum airdrop requirements. It received the equivalent of $2.5 million in RBN, which was quickly resold on the market.
To avoid these disappointments, projects have made the minimum thresholds more complex to ensure that the tokens go to active users and not to "mercenaries" in the sector. This is notably the case with Paraswap, an aggregator of decentralised exchange platforms, whose airdrop launched at the end of 2021 required a "qualified" level of use. To be eligible for airdrop, users had to have used Paraswap several times on Ethereum, Polygon and Binance Smart Chain, and have a minimum balance on the linked wallets. The measure drew some criticism, as many users found themselves excluded from airdrop without really knowing why... Only 19,000 addresses (out of a total of 1.8 million having interacted with Paraswap) received the PSP token. For the lucky few, it was well worth the effort: the equivalent of $5,000 to $10,000 was distributed.
Now that you know all about airdrops, you can check out our selection. This one was put together with Jean Brasse , a specialist in the subject, who offers some recommendations to maximise your chances of being eligible.
1 - Arbitrum Arbitrum is a layer 2 (L2) solution that enhances Ethereum's scalability. It allows users to take advantage of Ethereum's security without paying the transaction fees of its blockchain and uses "optimistics rollups" technology.
In order to reward its early adopters and accelerate the decentralisation of its protocol, Arbitrum could carry out an airdrop. There are several ways you can try to benefit from this, such as:
👉 Using Arbitrum's official bridge (Arbitrum Bridge
👉 Using the protocols deployed on Arbitrum, taking care to spread the tests over different days: Curve, Uniswap, GMX, Dopex, Sushi, Aave, etc
👉 Take part in Arbitrum Odyssey: this event, which started on 21 June and will run for 8 weeks, provides an opportunity to familiarise yourself with the Arbitrum ecosystem. The idea is to take part in a fun trail where you can be rewarded with NFTs created by well-known artists. Arbitrum Odyssey was interrupted last week due to its success, which led to network congestion 😅. The event will resume after the Nitro update.
2 - StarkNet
StarkNet is also a scalability solution dedicated to Ethereum, but which uses "ZK rollups" technology. According to many experts, StarkNet has the potential to be Ethereum's highest-performing layer 2.
StarkNet's airdrop is an open secret, but has never been confirmed by the team. Here are your options for trying to benefit from it:
👉 Use the official bridge (StarkGate)
👉 Try out the first protocols deployed on the StarkNet testnet: StarkSwap, Jedi Swap, MySwap, etc.
👉 Launch your own StarkNet node
3 - ZkSync
ZKSync is another Ethereum scalability solution (you guessed it, it's the year of layers 2!).
There are several hypotheses for claiming this potential airdrop, such as using bridges supporting ZKSync :
👉 ZigZag
👉 LayerSwap
👉 Orbiter
👉 Perform swaps on ZigZag using the ZkSync network
👉 Using the ZKSync V2 testnet
4 - Lens Protocol
Lens is a protocol designed on the Polygon blockchain, the aim of which is to develop decentralised social networks in which users own their data... In particular, this system would enable creators to no longer be directly dependent on platforms such as Facebook that impose their terms of use.
To reward but also decentralise the protocol, Lens could carry out an airdrop. Here are some good suggestions for potentially gaining access.
👉 Use the private beta version. Several criteria were required to gain access. You can check your eligibility by visiting the Lens Protocol website. If you're not, more windows should be available in the coming weeks.
👉 Lenster
👉 LensTube
👉 Phaver
👉 Refract
👉 Iris Social
👉 Follow other Lens users
👉 Write posts
👉 Collect posts
👉 Mirror posts
👉 Comment on posts
5 - Debank / Rabby
Debank is a "Wallet Tracker Multichain" enabling all DeFi users to track the status of their wallet. DeBank integrates more than 1,000 protocols on 34 different blockchains. Rabby is DeBank's in-house wallet.
Many hypotheses for trying to gain access to the airdrop:
👉 Connect your address on DeBank
👉 Verify your address
👉 Follow other addresses
👉 Connect your Twitter account
👉 Connect your Github account
👉 Add your email address
👉 Minter your ID (reserved for the 10.000 addresses with the best ranking)
👉 Vote on proposals to integrate new protocols
👉 Install and use the Rabby wallet
