Author: Biteye Little Sister @biteye_sister

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, and 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 surrounding the pros and cons of airdrops has been ongoing for two to three years, from "equal distribution" to "basic income," and then to "witch hunts" 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 a minimum airdrop of 400 tokens, which was worth up to $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 being countered;"

For projects, a successful airdrop can earn the community's deep admiration: "The founder enjoys the great temple!" A poor airdrop, on the other hand, may lead to an angry community digging up the last eight digits of the ID number.

Ice Frog has gained wealth from airdrop projects like ARB and BLUR, earning the nickname Frog Total from fans.

Regardless of one's views on airdrops, after each airdrop, one question is repeatedly raised:

It's already 202x, can we still take advantage of airdrops?

The reason people keep asking is simply due to the decreasing airdrop shares, increasingly strict witch rules, and the plummeting prices of coins after listing.

To address this, the following will take 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 reduced L2 transaction fees by 90%, and various re-staked assets followed suit by launching staking Points;
• On March 18, Solana's price broke through $210, having risen 20 times since the FTX crash 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 undoubtedly the fastest "Airdrop" to harvest in 2024! At that time, they hinted at rewards while collaborating with okxweb3, and obtaining the NFT was very simple; just deposit the test sbtc into the test pool and bind the EVM wallet (to claim the NFT).

Challenges

1. First, the testnet water was very hard to obtain, and most players couldn't get any, getting stuck at the water-claiming stage; 2. Should I guard against witch hunts? Initially, I 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 to create about 200 accounts;

After careful consideration, I ultimately decided not to take measures against witch hunts because, firstly, the BTC ecosystem rarely checks for witches, and secondly, sharing some test coins under the circumstances of insufficient faucets is quite normal.

Since only the first 100,000 users would receive rewards, the entire event was quite tight, lasting about two days. The main workload was distributing testnet tokens, and I completed about 200 accounts to obtain around 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 to 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 are quite valuable.

Tinfun NFT whitelist, Bitsmiley smiley whitelist, INK whitelist, these all have single account earnings of over $1,000, with zero cost to participate.

However, as the number of participants increases, okxweb3 has also taken measures to reduce the winning rate for "arbitrageurs."

They tier the EVM addresses, with wallets that have rich DEFI and NFT behaviors 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 in every round, 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

1. Bitsmiley was using BTC wallets for the lottery, requiring a verification of about $10 in BTC. I divided 100 wallets, and based on the overall winning probability, I remember it was over 1/20, and I won 6 whitelists;

2. A single NFT could sell for $2,000 at its peak, totaling nearly $10,000 in profit. (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 unisat airdrop criteria.

Profit Assessment

The basic income was 100 pizza per wallet, and after all airdrops were distributed, the value per wallet reached $600, peaking at $800, yielding about 80 wallets * 550 = around $40,000.

Overall, airdrops in the BTC ecosystem often occur after the BTC price breaks new highs, during a period of "liquidity overflow."

They feature high thresholds (BTC chain gas, interaction difficulty), high returns (single account earnings), and low requirements (no large-scale witch checks).

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 the main airdrop projects in 2024 being: Friendtech, Stark, Zksync, Layerzero.

2.1 Friendtech

FT is a phenomenal socialfi from the end of 2023. I only started participating a month later, without holding a big V account, and instead 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 within 1 ETH.

Profit Assessment

The airdrop started 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, yielding a total profit of around $30,000.

As for costs, I wore down less than one 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

Stark's airdrop is the third project to issue tokens among the four major L2s, and its reputation differs from the praise received by the first two; Stark's airdrop can be described as having mixed reviews.

The controversial point about Stark is the blanket rule regarding on-chain balances, meaning that wallets with less than 0.005 ETH are disqualified.

However, other criteria, such as being active for at least 3 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 feeling "betrayed," resulting in total losses.

Additionally, there was the witch hunt by Trustgo, which flagged a batch of wallets with similar on-chain activities. However, since Trustgo's witch list is not public and the standards for witch hunting are not disclosed, the relatively centralized anti-witch measures faced opposition from players.

Nevertheless, for those players who met the requirements, Starknet was undoubtedly a rewarding airdrop, deserving of its title among the four major L2s.

The basic income for low-income accounts was a minimum of 500 tokens, and selling promptly at launch yielded around $1,100. Slightly more premium accounts received between 1,000 to 3,600 tokens, with single account earnings reaching $2,000 to $8,000. A total of over 1 million addresses received the airdrop, making it quite large in scale.

The top-tier reward was 10,000 tokens per account, worth around $20,000, which was a challenging condition with fewer achievers.

Profit Assessment

I invested in about 50 accounts for Stark (due to monthly activity and balance not meeting the requirements, I lost some accounts), with each account holding between 650 to 3,600 tokens, totaling 50,000 tokens, yielding approximately 100,000 in profit at launch.

In short, the Stark airdrop was undoubtedly a victory for multiple low-income accounts, as the basic income standards were quite lenient.

0.005 ETH balance + 3 months of activity + $100 in trading volume, with a cost of under $5, could yield a return of $1,000.

Although the rewards for top-tier premium accounts were more than 10 times that of low-income accounts, the difficulty and cost were 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. Coupled with the harsh blanket rule on balances, this led some users to suspect the existence of "insider trading."

Unfortunately, after the token issuance, the Stark ecosystem could not maintain its TVL and user activity. Subsequent ecosystem airdrops, such as Zklend and Ekubo, despite being decent DeFi projects, saw poor token prices and airdrop earnings.

2.3 Zksync

However, in the second half of the year, Zksync and L0's airdrops completely shattered the 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 into the Zksync protocol the most important metric for measuring airdrops, which contradicts the 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's standards.

However, I personally 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 since. The cost was not low, and I invested considerable effort.

Some players who have been grinding for 3 years ended up with nothing, and even some studios with outdated strategies did not achieve any gains. This airdrop undoubtedly disappointed most people.

2.4 Layerzero

L0's airdrop is worse than ZK, being the worst of the worst. The airdrop share is extremely low, the conditions are harsh, and there were unpleasant experiences with "witch hunts" and large reports, which I prefer not to discuss further.

Profit Assessment

The returns from L0 are very low; most accounts barely break even, with larger accounts possibly seeing 2x returns. I didn't even have a single account that earned 1,000u. Later, L0 conducted a secondary airdrop, but the results were only mediocre.

Overall, the ETH ecosystem remains a gathering place for various airdrop projects, but the rules for airdrops are gradually tightening, and witch checks have become stricter, making it increasingly difficult for single accounts to return to previous earnings.

The shift from the past "multiple account era" to the current "premium account" era indicates a transition in airdrops from "zero arbitrage" 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 to $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's airdrop was 200 tokens, worth about $120. Additionally, OG BONUS, trading volume, sustained usage, and whether users continued to use the limit order function during 2023 (the bear market) were all extra bonuses. JUP also 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. However, from a personal perspective, the vast majority of players had token amounts below 500 per single wallet, as the Solana ecosystem fell into nearly a year of silence after the FTX crash 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 low-income $Wen (sold for $800) and about 10 low-income $Jup (sold for $2,000).

From an ROI perspective, the returns from the Jupiter series are quite high because the interaction costs in the Solana ecosystem are very low. However, for players who only dabble and only take the low-income, the absolute income is not high, making it a decent return.

For bulk players with multiple accounts, as long as they avoid bot checks, the JUP airdrop is undoubtedly a victory for low-income multi-account players. From the perspective of airdrop rules, there are no obvious insider trading rules in place.

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 only about 400,000 eligible addresses.

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 the platform during the bear market.

Of course, Wormhole also has anti-witch measures; in addition to the common funding source analysis, 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 airdrop, 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 eligible addresses. However, the project's anti-witch measures and specific airdrop standards are not very transparent, leading some users who did not receive airdrops to question the transparency of the airdrop.

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 task-based and highly recognized, 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 for EVM airdrops 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

Staking projects or RWA stablecoin projects combined with L2 projects allow for multiple benefits, earning 10% or higher APY and point rewards. This approach is suitable for large funds seeking stability. To pursue higher point rewards, one can participate in PT activities, which involve more intense competition.

For example, around May, the Stone project allowed users to stake ETH into Stone, then cross-chain into the Scroll chain to buy PT, and sell at the end of June, potentially earning "free" Stone points without any loss or even profit. For a more secure approach, one could split Queenstone to obtain stable earnings and points.

This series of operations interacted with Stone + Layerzero + Scroll projects, allowing for dual points from Stone and Scroll, which is a typical example of maximizing benefits.

There are many similar examples, such as:

Cross-chaining ezETH to Linea and depositing into Mitosis. This series of operations interacted with Renzo + Hyperlane (cross-chain) + Mitosis + Linea four projects.

The above examples are for points; if aiming for APY earnings, one could 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 have wallet requirements for participation, such as Initia requiring 20 Gitcoin points.

Additionally, some projects offer bonuses for older wallets; for instance, Particle provides extra point bonuses for older accounts with transactions.

3. Alpha Projects and Imaginative Tracks

Currently, the alpha ratio in the Base ecosystem is relatively high, even though Base may not necessarily issue tokens; the Superchain centered around Optimism also presents a potential narrative, as excessive L2s are not required.

Shifting to Other Tracks

1. BTC Track

In the BTC track, there has already been a wave of hype around inscriptions, and there is still significant potential. In 2024, BTC has seen the emergence of major projects like RSIC/DOG/PIZZA/Bitsmiley/Babylon NFT, which are characterized by "easy earnings" and reference transactions and held assets.

Therefore, the current strategy is to frequently use wallets like Unisat, Wizz, or websites like Gennidata to mint unique assets, such as 0-number runes/BRC20 assets, or 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 costs (as whitelists can be obtained).

2. Solana Track

The Solana track is a capital-rich space, with the foundation providing substantial support for excellent projects. Solana has long been referred to as the "ETH killer," and following this line of thought, successful applications on the ETH chain should also exist on Solana. For example, Lido-Jito on Solana 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 space; on one hand, it has a low barrier to entry suitable for retail investors.

Unlike the EVM/BTC ecosystems, in the Ton ecosystem, you only need a TG account and a small amount of funds to participate. However, on the other hand, it is nearly impossible for retail investors to make significant profits.

Due to mass adoption, the number of players in the Ton ecosystem is extremely high, reaching millions, and airdrop amounts for single accounts may only be a few hundred dollars. A retail investor with ten accounts seems unlikely to earn substantial profits.

Moreover, bulk accounts have a high demand 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 studios may be able to reap significant profits from the first wave of opportunities. Nevertheless, 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, the SUI ecosystem has seen a major airdrop called Deepbook: simply staking or interacting with related staking DeFi protocols can qualify you, with single account rewards ranging from dozens to hundreds of dollars.

Similarly, the APT foundation has reserved some tokens for future airdrop rounds. A prudent approach would be to 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 participants.

However, it is important to note that automated scripts for studios are quite mature, and manual participants need to focus on completing the number of tasks and the quality of roles and items obtained in single accounts rather than pursuing low-income rewards in bulk.

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