Original Author: Biteye Little Sister @biteye_sister
Original Editor: Biteye Core Contributor Crush
Note: The following content is adapted from a speech given by a Biteye colleague during an airdrop strategy sharing meeting. All airdrop earnings are personal real experience shares.
Airdrop, a term that most cryptocurrency users have seen, could be the easiest way to make money or the fastest way to ruin one's health.
The debate over the pros and cons of airdrops has lasted for two to three years, from "spreading the wealth" to "basic income," and then to "witch hunting" and "points"…
Regardless of whether you like this model, it has profoundly influenced many projects in the blockchain industry.
On September 17, 2020, UNISWAP conducted an airdrop of at least 400 tokens, which had a maximum value of $16,000, and the only requirement to claim was to have used the protocol.
For users, a successful airdrop is referred to as "X total," while an unsuccessful one is "X certain who got rekt";
For projects, a successful airdrop can earn the community's deep admiration: "The founder deserves the highest honor!" A poor airdrop, on the other hand, may lead to the community angrily digging up the last eight digits of the ID number.
Ice Frog has gained multiple fortunes from airdrop projects like ARB and BLUR, earning the nickname "Frog Total" from fans.
Regardless of one's views on airdrops, there is one question that is repeatedly raised after each airdrop:
Can we still take advantage of airdrops in 202x?
The reason people keep asking is simply due to the decreasing share of airdrops, increasingly strict witch-hunting rules, and the plummeting prices of coins after listing.
To address this, the following text will take about 15 minutes to answer the question "Can we still take advantage of airdrops?" while reviewing the main airdrop projects of 2024. (The following content is excerpted from a senior's speech at the Biteye airdrop strategy sharing meeting.)
To clarify, I will introduce based on "popular events and tracks as the main focus, with time nodes as a supplement."
In 2024, there are three main popular events and tracks:
On January 10, Bitcoin ETF was approved, inscriptions landed on three major exchanges, and founder Casey bet that if the newly launched rune's market cap fell below $1 billion, he would "live stream seppuku";
On March 13, Ethereum's Cancun upgrade, L2 transaction fees were reduced by 90%, and various re-staked assets imitated Blast to launch staking Points;
On March 18, Solana's price broke $210, having risen 20 times since the FTX collapse at the end of 2022, becoming a paradise for MEME coins and driving the DePIN track.
01 Bitcoin Track
Let's start with Bitcoin. The airdrop projects in the Bitcoin track for 2024 mainly include: Babylon Pioneer NFT, Pizza airdrop, and OKX Wallet Drops.
1.1 Babylon Pioneer NFT
Babylon's NFT is definitely one of the fastest "Airdrops" to harvest in 2024! They hinted at rewards while collaborating with okxweb3, and obtaining the NFT was very simple; you just needed to deposit test sbtc into the test pool and bind your EVM wallet (to claim the NFT).
Challenges
- First, the testnet water was very hard to obtain; most players couldn't get any and were stuck at the water-claiming stage; 2. Should I guard against witch hunting? I initially got some water, but it was only enough for 10 accounts, so I found a water dealer in an external group and bought 100u of sbtc (I forgot the exact amount), which I remember was enough for about 200 accounts;
After much consideration, I ultimately decided not to take measures against witch hunting because, firstly, the BTC ecosystem rarely checks for witches, and secondly, sharing some test coins in the absence of enough faucets is quite normal.
Since only the first 100,000 users would receive rewards, the entire activity was quite tight, lasting about two days. The main workload was distributing testnet tokens, and I completed around 200 accounts to obtain about 200 NFTs.
Profit Assessment
This event had an explosive ROI; I sold about 100 NFTs at an average price of 160u in the external and okx markets, making a profit of 15,000u. The remaining ones haven't been sold, and currently, one NFT has dropped below 30u; I feel I should have sold them all during the FOMO phase.
1.2 OKX Drops
https://www.okx.com/zh-hans/web3/marketplace/launchpad
Okxweb3's BD connects with relatively high-quality project parties every week to seek whitelist benefits for the community, and some whitelists have considerable value.
Tinfun NFT whitelist, Bitsmiley smiley whitelist, INK whitelist, these all yield over $1,000 per single number, with zero cost to participate.
However, as the number of participants increases, okxweb3 has also taken measures to reduce the winning rate for "arbitragers."
They tier the EVM addresses, with wallets that have rich DEFI and NFT activities being premium accounts, having a much higher winning probability than ordinary accounts, while "bot" accounts have a lower winning rate than ordinary accounts.
Therefore, the best strategy is for users with premium account resources to participate every time, ensuring stable free gains. (It is still uncertain whether wallet tiered lottery is applied in BTC wallets and Sol wallets.)
I saw the Bitsmiley event at that time because the BTC ecosystem was hot, and the participation cost was very low, so I decided to join.
Profit Assessment
Bitsmiley was using BTC wallets for the lottery, with a verification capital of about $10 in BTC. I divided 100 wallets, and the overall winning probability I remember was over 1/20; I won 6 whitelists;
A single NFT could sell for $2,000 at its peak, with total profits nearing $10,000. (This deployment of okx lottery later brought me great surprises in the BTC ecosystem, as will be discussed later).
1.3 Pizza
Pizza is a meme coin officially released by Unisat, with excellent material and very high popularity.
Unitsat announced that wallets that had interacted (transferred) using the unisat wallet within three months of the snapshot time would receive basic income; additionally, using unisat services, having points, and being a unisat OG would yield higher rewards.
Earlier, I mentioned that I participated in okx drops and divided 100 wallets. In May, I wanted to participate in Solv's BTC staking, so I planned to consolidate the BTC from those 100 wallets for staking. By chance, each wallet had a transfer record, thus meeting the airdrop criteria of unisat.
Profit Assessment
The basic income number is 100 pizza per wallet, and after all airdrops were distributed, the value per number reached $600, peaking at $800, with profits around 80 wallets * 550 = about $40,000.
Overall, airdrops in the BTC ecosystem often occur after the BTC price breaks new highs, during a period of "liquidity overflow."
They are characterized by high thresholds (BTC on-chain gas, interaction difficulty), high returns (single number profits), and low requirements (no large-scale witch hunting).
However, the value of airdrops is reflected in expectations; selling midway often yields the maximum profit, while "holding on until the end" often turns a feast into a leftover banquet.
02 ETH Ecosystem
Next is the ETH ecosystem, with airdrop projects in 2024 mainly including: Friendtech, Stark, Zksync, Layerzero.
2.1 Friendtech
FT is a phenomenal socialfi of late 2023. I only started participating a month later, so I didn't hold a big V account but chose to matrix farm.
However, the process was not smooth; due to team rule changes, I needed to move positions (and buying and selling incurs a 10% cut).
Ultimately, I invested more than 5 ETH, and the matrix could leverage three times, with the matrix ultimately having a portfolio value of less than 20 ETH, with total wear and tear under 1 ETH.
Profit Assessment
Airdrops began in May 2024, and I ultimately received 15,000 points. I sold 2,500 points at a price of $4 on Whales Market Pro, and the remaining points were sold between $1-2 at the opening, yielding a total profit of around $30,000.
As for costs, I wore down less than 1 ETH, but the remaining ETH rose from $1,800 to a peak of $3,500; I believe the cost of mining FT was actually negative.
2.2 Stark
The Stark airdrop is the third project among the four major L2s to issue tokens, and its airdrop reputation differs from the praise received by the first two; Stark's airdrop can be said to be mixed in reputation.
A controversial point about Stark is the blanket rule on on-chain balances, meaning wallets with less than 0.005 ETH are disqualified.
However, other standards, such as being active for at least three months and trading $100, are relatively easy to meet.
Stark's standards led to a group of users who deposited ETH into on-chain DeFi projects being "backstabbed," losing everything.
Additionally, there was witch hunting by Trustgo, which targeted a batch of wallets with similar on-chain activities; however, since Trustgo's witch hunting database and standards are not public, the relatively centralized anti-witch measures also faced opposition from players.
But for those players who meet the requirements, Starknet is undoubtedly an Eat Well airdrop, truly deserving of the title of one of the four major L2s.
Basic income accounts receive a minimum of 500 tokens, and selling them promptly at launch yields around $1,100. Slightly premium accounts have airdrop amounts ranging from 1,000 to 3,600 tokens, with single account earnings reaching $2,000 to $8,000. A total of over 1 million addresses received airdrops, making the scale quite large.
The top-tier reward is 10,000 tokens per account, with a value of $20,000 per account; however, this condition is relatively difficult to meet, and few achieve it.
Profit Assessment
I invested in about 50 accounts on Stark (due to monthly activity and balance not meeting requirements, I lost some accounts), with each account holding between 650 and 3,600 tokens, totaling 50,000 tokens, yielding approximately 100,000 at launch.
In short, the Stark airdrop is undoubtedly a victory for multiple low-income accounts, as the basic income standards are quite lenient.
A balance of 0.005 ETH + 3 months of monthly activity + $100 in transactions allows for a cost of under $5 to achieve a return of $1,000.
Although the rewards for top-tier premium accounts are more than ten times that of basic income accounts, the difficulty and cost are too high, making the cost-effectiveness insufficient.
It is worth noting that the Stark airdrop also rewarded the ECMP program, which is the contributor program, and the blanket rule on balances led some users to suspect "insider trading."
Unfortunately, after issuing tokens, the Stark ecosystem could not maintain its TVL and user activity, and subsequent ecosystem airdrops like Zklend and Ekubo, despite being decent DeFi projects, had poor token prices and airdrop earnings.
2.3 Zksync
However, in the second half of the year, Zksync and L0's airdrops completely shattered expectations for 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 metric for measuring airdrops, which contradicts previous user perceptions of monthly activity, transaction amounts, and transaction counts.
Additionally, zk rewarded holders of some niche zk native tokens and certain NFT collections, raising suspicions of "insider trading" regarding the entire airdrop standards.
However, I believe that Zksync's standards reward genuine DeFi players, as many real players received airdrops exceeding 50,000 tokens, making this zk airdrop undoubtedly a reward for premium accounts.
Profit Assessment
I only had over 10,000 zk in my main account, while other accounts had only a few thousand, and half of the accounts did not receive airdrops due to insufficient funds, totaling only 80,000 zk.
Moreover, due to the unsatisfactory opening price, I did not sell and have been stuck with them until now. The cost was not low, and I invested considerable effort.
Some players who have been grinding for three years received nothing, and even some studios with outdated strategies did not achieve any earnings. This airdrop undoubtedly disappointed most people.
2.4 Layerzero
L0 airdrops are worse than ZK, being the worst of the worst. The airdrop share is extremely low, the conditions are harsh, and there have been unpleasant experiences with "witch hunting" and large reports, which I prefer not to discuss.
Profit Assessment
The earnings from L0 are very low; most accounts barely break even, with larger accounts possibly achieving double returns. I didn't even have a single account with 1,000u. Later, L0 conducted a secondary airdrop, but the results can only be described as mediocre.
Overall, the ETH ecosystem remains a gathering place for various airdrop projects, but the rules for airdrops are gradually tightening, and witch hunting checks have become stricter, making it increasingly difficult for single accounts to achieve past earnings.
From the past "multiple account era" to the current "premium account" era, it is evident that airdrops have shifted from "zero cost" to "investment."
03 Solana Ecosystem
Finally, in the Solana ecosystem, the main airdrop projects for 2024 include: Jupiter and Wormhole.
3.1 WEN
In January, before the $JUP token launch, a meme coin issuance experiment was conducted, with 70% of the WEN airdrop evenly distributed to over 1 million Solana wallet addresses.
The airdrop targets included Jupiter users, Ovols NFT holders, blue-chip NFT holders, Genesis Saga NFT holders, and mockJUP test users.
Profit Assessment
Each address received an average of 643,652 tokens, and depending on the selling time, single accounts earned between $50 and $100.
3.2 JUP
On January 31, the JUP airdrop launched, with the snapshot deadline on November 2, 2023. Over 950,000 wallets that interacted directly with Jupiter were eligible for the first airdrop, with 336,000 wallets receiving 200 JUP.
The basic income for JUP is 200 tokens, which is about $120. Additionally, OG BONUS, trading volume, sustained usage, and whether the user continued to use it during 2023 (the bear market) and whether they used limit order functions are all extra bonuses. JUP has marked and excluded bot accounts.
As a new player who entered the space in 2022, most players who have tried the Solana ecosystem have used Jupiter, but from a personal perspective, the vast majority of players have token amounts below 500 per single wallet, as the Solana ecosystem fell into nearly a year of silence after the FTX collapse at the end of 2022, making it quite difficult to continue using Jup.
Profit Assessment
I have 10 Solana wallets that have all used Jupiter, but only one main wallet received a larger amount of tokens, totaling 10 basic incomes of $Wen (sold for $800) and about 10 basic incomes of $Jup (sold for $2,000).
From an ROI perspective, the Jupiter series has a very high return because the interaction costs in the Solana ecosystem are low. However, if players only dabble and only receive basic incomes, their absolute income is not high, making it a decent return for a casual player.
For bulk players with multiple accounts, as long as they avoid bot checks, the JUP airdrop is undoubtedly a victory for low-income multiple account holders. From the airdrop rules, there are no obvious insider trading rules established.
3.3 Wormhole Airdrop
$W is considered the cross-chain protocol with the highest airdrop earnings to date.
The main reasons are significant funding, backing from Solana, and relatively less competition compared to Layerzero, with fewer qualified addresses (over 400,000).
Wormhole examined users' full-chain activities, setting a minimum interaction threshold of around $1,500, and rewarded early users, continuous users, and those who continued to use it during the bear market.
Of course, Wormhole also has anti-witch hunting measures; in addition to the common analysis of funding sources, Wormhole employs behavioral clustering analysis to identify clusters (https://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0476) and analyzes spam transactions.
Profit Assessment
Additionally, some Solana and EVM wallets received a small amount of airdrops, but the official criteria were not disclosed in detail, making it unclear why some accounts did not receive airdrops.
In summary, the Wormhole airdrop has a high ROI due to the scarcity of participants and the abundance of rewards. However, the project's anti-witch hunting measures and specific airdrop standards are not very transparent, leading some users who did not receive airdrops to question the lack of transparency.
Overall, the Solana ecosystem remains a capital game, where only projects with good investment backgrounds have the potential to profit from airdrops. In contrast, other airdrop projects on Solana have very low returns.
04 Summary and Outlook
Overall, the trend shows that airdrops in 2022 and 2023, such as Op and Arbitrum, have rarely faced controversies regarding "insider trading."
Their airdrop standards are relatively "natural" and "normal." Even some projects that reward NFT collections, like Galxe and ZKBridge, involve well-known collections that are synthesized through tasks, such as "Galaxy Girls" and "Panda King."
Insider trading operations are limited to knowing the snapshot time in advance and selling NFTs promptly after the snapshot; normal players who continue to hold NFTs are not significantly affected.
However, looking at airdrops like zk and l0, the standards have become difficult to predict, as these projects often reward some "mysterious" tokens and NFT communities, making it challenging for ordinary players with information asymmetry to prepare in advance.
Therefore, strategies in the EVM airdrop track need to undergo certain changes, and the focus should not continue to be solely on the EVM track.
Future Strategies for EVM Airdrops
1. DeFi Earnings
Re-staking projects or RWA stablecoin projects combined with L2 projects and DeFi projects can yield multiple benefits, earning 10% or higher APY and point rewards. This approach is suitable for large funds seeking stability. To pursue higher point rewards, participation in PT gameplay can be considered, which involves more intense competition.
For example, around May, the Stone project allows you to stake ETH into Stone, then cross-chain into the Scroll chain to buy PT, and sell at the end of June, potentially achieving "free" Stone points without loss or even profit. If you want to be cautious, you can split Queenstone to obtain stable earnings and points.
This series of operations interacts with the Stone + Layerzero + Scroll projects, allowing for dual points from Stone and Scroll, which is a typical example of multiple benefits.
There are many similar examples, such as:
Cross-chain ezETH to Linea and deposit into Mitosis. This series of operations interacts with Renzo + Hyperlane (cross-chain) + Mitosis + Linea four projects.
The above examples are for points; if aiming for APY earnings, consider stablecoin/RWA projects like usde/Usual or Anzen.
2. Account Creation and Maintenance
Although there are currently no eye-catching new airdrop projects in the EVM space, some testnet projects require certain conditions for wallet eligibility, such as Initia requiring 20 points from Gitcoin.
Additionally, some projects offer bonuses for older wallets; for example, Particle provides extra point bonuses for older accounts with transactions.
3. Alpha Projects, Imaginative Tracks
Currently, the proportion of alpha in the base ecosystem is larger, although base may not necessarily issue tokens; the Superchain centered around Optimism also has a potential narrative, as excessive L2s are not required.
Shifting to Other Tracks
1. BTC Track
For the BTC track, there has already been a wave of hype around inscriptions, and there is still significant room for growth. In 2024, BTC has already given birth to major projects like RSIC/DOG/PIZZA/Bitsmiley/Babylon NFT, which have the important characteristic of "earning passively," along with reference to transaction volume and held assets.
Therefore, the current strategy is to frequently use wallets like Unisat, Wizz, or websites like Gennidata to mint some unique assets, such as 0-number runes/BRC20 assets, or to purchase high-demand assets like pizza/sats/ordi/rsic on marketplaces.
After configuring accounts, there will be many opportunities to participate in new BTC ecosystem projects at low cost (as you can obtain whitelists).
2. Solana Track
The Solana track is a capital-rich track, with the foundation providing greater support for outstanding projects. Solana has long been referred to as the "ETH killer," and following this line of thinking, successful applications on the ETH chain should also exist on Solana. For example, Solana's Lido-Jito allows you to earn tens of thousands of dollars in returns by staking just 1 SOL.
Additionally, there are platforms like OpenSea/Blur-Magiceden on Solana, and projects like Safe-Squads that have not yet issued tokens. The number of users on Solana is still relatively low compared to EVM chains, presenting significant opportunities.
3. Ton Track
The Ton track is a contradictory one; on one hand, it is a low-threshold track suitable for retail investors.
Unlike the EVM/BTC ecosystems, in the Ton ecosystem, you only need a TG account and a minimal amount of funds to participate; however, on the other hand, retail investors are almost unlikely to make significant profits.
Due to mass adoption, the number of players in the Ton ecosystem is extremely high, reaching millions, and airdrop amounts per account may only yield a few hundred dollars. A retail investor with ten accounts seems unable to make substantial profits.
Moreover, bulk accounts have high demands for device/IP/account risk management, and inexperienced retail investors may lose half of their accounts in a short period.
However, for studios with experience and account resources, since 90% of studios are still in the EVM/Sol track, these Ton track studios may likely reap significant profits from the first wave of opportunities. However, I do not believe retail investors have substantial chances in this track.
4. Move Ecosystem
Recently, the Move ecosystem has been quite active, with SUI continuously hitting new highs and APT also returning to the $10 mark.
Notably, a major airdrop called Deepbook has emerged in the SUI ecosystem: you only need to stake or interact with related staking DeFi protocols to qualify, with single account earnings ranging from dozens to several hundred dollars.
Similarly, the APT foundation has reserved some tokens for future airdrop rounds. A prudent approach is to also stake on APT or interact with staking protocols like Amnis while waiting for rewards.
The new darling of the Move language is undoubtedly Movement. Currently, Movement has already opened a series of tasks on the testnet for all dedicated players.
However, it is important to note that automated scripts for studios are quite mature, and manual players need to focus on completing tasks and obtaining characters and items in single accounts rather than pursuing low-income opportunities in bulk.
Risk Warning: The above is for informational sharing only and is not investment advice. Readers should comply with the laws and regulations of their location.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
