Guide to Airdrop Hunting: How to Select Projects & Winning Tips

With the emergence of major airdrop events like Aptos, Arbitrum, Blur, etc., the topic of airdrops has become increasingly lively. Many “newbies” have joined this field, and they ask which airdrop projects to participate in & how to increase their chances of “winning”? Looking at the current reality, there are too many airdrop projects you can join. Besides famous projects like Starknet, zkSynch, LayerZero, Scroll, there are hundreds of other choices.

BUT – our time and energy are limited. We cannot participate in all these airdrops. So, how do we find high-quality airdrop projects? How to increase the chances of receiving airdrops? In today’s article, I will share some airdrop experiences so you can choose the right project, do it the right way, and have the chance to receive the most tokens.

Effective Airdrop Hunting Tips for Newbies

Basic Logic – Why do Projects Airdrop?

Before answering why a project wants to airdrop, first, we must understand what an airdrop is and the basic logic behind it. An airdrop we are talking about is an event where the project gives away free tokens to users.

So why do projects want to give away free tokens to users?

For ease of understanding, let’s take a simple example: If a public blockchain is compared to a highway, then miners (running nodes) are responsible for building the road and collecting tolls. Then, developers build various facilities like gas stations, rest areas, maintenance stations, restaurants, etc. (i.e., DAPPs) to earn service fees. So, are the highway builders there just for the joy of building? No, they are there to make a profit.

The development of public chains and DAPP projects is the basic structure in the blockchain world. And once the basic construction is done, what is most desired? Users.

As more builders start joining this industry, one public chain after another is developed, such as SOL, NEAR, FLOW, AVAX, OP, etc. But in the end, they realize, there are not too many users. Currently, there are too many providers and users have many choices.

It’s like having two equally luxurious shopping centers in front of your house, with the same products. Shopping Center B offers nothing, but at Shopping Center A, you get points, which can be exchanged for rewards. Which shopping center would you go to? You would go to Shopping Center A, right, because it has point accumulation and gift exchange activities. Generally, the point/gift system of Shopping Center A is a marketing, promotional act for the center.

Similarly, blockchain builders have set up the infrastructure, and they need a large number of users to use it before they can make money. To boost the industry and attract users, they have used airdrops as a simple, primitive, and direct marketing method.

Participating in Airdrop Hunting – What to Prepare?

You may have recently heard that XX participated in an airdrop and made a lot of money, so you are also very excited and want to participate in airdrops. But to participate in airdrops, you need to prepare some “gear,” as airdrops are not suitable for newcomers just stepping into this field.

• Equip yourself with basic knowledge about crypto, have a cryptocurrency wallet like metamask, know how to trade on DEX platforms, know swap operations, cross-chain operations…
• Have all the necessary social media accounts: twitter, discord, telegram…, and know how to use these platforms proficiently.
• Prepare a small amount of capital, as some projects may require you to spend a little when doing airdrops, for example, to cover gas fees…
• Know about some tools and platforms that support airdrop hunting like: Layer3, Galxe, Crew3, Quest3, Gitcoin, Snapshot… Professional airdrop hunters will know and be proficient in these platforms.
• If it’s a Testnet, then you also need coins from the Testnet network. Additionally, learn and understand about Faucets, Goerli testnet… to earn free tokens for project testing.

Where to Find Information About Airdrops?

There are many websites and information channels that provide you with this data. Let me try to list some websites I often refer to:

• https://airdropalert.com/
• https://airdrops.io/
• https://boxmining.com/category/airdrops/
• https://coinmarketcap.com/airdrop/

Twitter channels that often update Airdrop information:

• https://twitter.com/AirdropAlertAAD
• https://twitter.com/AirdropStario
• https://twitter.com/AirdropKart
• https://twitter.com/airdropblgspot
• https://twitter.com/AirdropHome_

Criteria for Choosing a Good Project for Airdrop

Despite this, you have to agree with me that currently, there are too many different projects for airdrop hunting. There are both good and bad ones. You can’t do them all, so it’s important to filter projects. I think the filtering criteria should include:

(1) Fundraising or sponsorship data: Projects that are backed by many investment funds or have substantial capital are signs of decent projects that can develop in the long term. Moreover, the financial situation also reflects the reliability and influence of the project in the crypto field. For example: zkSync raised 458 million USD and Scroll raised 80 million USD.

Read more: Top 20 crypto projects with the most VC funding since early 2023

(2) Strong Support: Projects with strong backing from large funds and influential figures often have a high success rate, as they bring legitimacy and the project can leverage them for more resources. For example, Uniswap is supported by a16z (the world’s largest cryptocurrency fund) and Blur is backed by Paradigm (an investment firm focused on supporting crypto/Web3 companies and protocols).

(3) Platform and Ecosystem: When evaluating the value and strength of a project, its fundamental principles are very important. Strong fundamentals often indicate that the project has the potential for innovation or problem-solving, and thus has much potential for long-term development. Let’s take Arbitrum as an example to see its fundamentals:

• Conceptually, it’s a Perp-oriented ecosystem with low Gas costs.
• In terms of revenue, it added $2.5 million in revenue in just the past six months.
• Regarding active users, it currently has 170,000 DAU and maintains a good upward trend.
• As for the ecosystem, there are many well-developed Dapps on ARB, such as GMX and Camelot.

(4) Hype: Hype here is not a derogatory term. Now in the cryptocurrency field, a well-developed project cannot be without some hype! It can be said that in this field, widespread promotion is a measure of attention. Good attention equates to good marketing, indirectly reflecting the project’s ability to attract new users (and the quality of the team). Therefore, if you find that there are very few topics or discussions about this project on the Internet, then don’t waste your time paying attention to it.

(5) A Good Tokenomics System is also very important for projects in this field. For example: vesting period, inflation rate, distribution rate, incentive and adjustment systems, etc. Through the tokenomic design, you can tell whether a project is worth participating in. For example, if a large proportion of tokens in a project are allocated to the founders or team, it’s likely not trustworthy.

4 Different Types of Airdrops to Distinguish

To increase your chances of receiving Airdrops, you must understand the logic of Airdrops. To do this, first, you need to know what types of Airdrops there are, then learn the specific rules of each project.

Generally, the rules for receiving airdrops from projects are very peculiar and different, but they are not without similarities. If categorized, I would divide them into 4 types of airdrops as follows:

(1) Airdrops for Token/NFT Holders: If you hold a certain NFT or Token, the project will gift you airdop tokens. For this type of airdrop, most projects will announce it in advance in the economic model of the whitepaper, as a marketing method. Users will have to pay to buy certain NFT/TOKEN to receive the airdrop. Example: Previous BAYC and MAYC NFT owners received many APE airdrops, or AIDOGE airdropped a large number of tokens to Arbitrum (ARB) token holders.

(2) Airdrops for Node Runners: As a node runner, you provide hardware equipment and services to network builders as required by the project. In addition to income from the job itself, you get extra rewards. There is a certain technical threshold, only for those who are knowledgeable about this. Generally, this type of airdrop is difficult to participate in, not suitable for the majority, so if you are an amateur airdrop hunter without knowledge, you don’t need to pay attention to this type of airdrop.

(3) Incentive Airdrops: The project arranges some promotional tasks, you visit Twitter to follow, retweet, leave messages, or chat on Discord, answer questions and give some constructive suggestions to the project. As the difficulty of the task is not too high and the entry threshold is low, most of these airdrops are based on a lottery. The amount of airdrop will not be too large. Less well-known projects often choose this type the most, as a way to help everyone promote their project.

(4) Retroactive Airdrops: Often for those who use products, services, interact with applications in the project’s ecosystem. The project will choose a moment to snapshot, recording users who have used their products and services before a certain time and reward this group with airdrops. Currently, most projects choose this type of airdrop, such as UNI, DYDX, ARB.

With these 4 types of airdrops, what do we need to keep in mind?

• Different types of airdrops have different conditions and methods of reception.

• The cryptocurrency market is always evolving, so airdrop rules will also be constantly adjusted to be more suitable for each period.

• Some project regulations will be announced in advance, but some will not. In fact, some projects will tell you they do not have airdrops, but eventually issue them.

• The ultimate goal of an airdrop is for the project to build an ecosystem and attract users to participate in it. It is not a program or mini-game for everyone to get rewards.

“Sybil” – A Major Issue in Airdrops

To understand the next topic, let me introduce you to the term “Sybil.” It refers to a person using multiple wallets, different accounts (clone accounts, clone wallets) to participate in the airdrop of a project multiple times, in order to receive the most rewards.

Example: 2 “super hunters” of airdrops cloned 866 addresses to receive 1.4 million ARB tokens.

We found 2 super airdrop hunters of $ARB.

0xe1e2 received 1.4M $ARB($1.92M) via 866 addresses and added all 1.4M $ARB to #Uniswap to provide liquidity.https://t.co/sncsZTHrP2

0xbd4e received 933,375 $ARB($1.28M) via 630 addresses.https://t.co/p5vbqXMYxD pic.twitter.com/yK3LzbeC8t

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 24, 2023

Although the Arbitrum Foundation issued a total of 17 different criteria, many focused on transaction volume, usage frequency, product experience level… Users had to meet at least 3 of these criteria to qualify for the airdrop.

Another project that airdropped a bit earlier than ARB is Space ID, which also faced a similar situation. According to lookonchain, wallet address 726752.bnb registered 10,000 Space ID domains through 10,000 different wallets and received 1,245,026 ID tokens (worth $622,000) from the airdrop. This is a form of sybil considered by the projects.

We noticed that 726752.bnb registered 10K 6D domains via 10K addresses from Feb 25 to Feb 27 and received 1,245,026 $ID ($622K) airdrops.#SPACEID

His cost was ~$50K and made a profit of ~$572K!

A smart airdrop hunter or insider?https://t.co/bY3jhTI06s pic.twitter.com/yBOBHMVNXa

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 23, 2023

This is why airdrops are becoming increasingly difficult. It’s no longer as simple as in the early days. Instead of simple activities like participating in transactions, holding tokens, sharing posts on Twitter… the reward criteria have become clearer and stricter over time.

How Have Airdrop Criteria Evolved?

To better understand how airdrop criteria have evolved, let’s review some historical airdrop deals. In the airdrop classification section, I mentioned 4 main types. Now, since types (1), (2), and (3) are quite straightforward and the rules for receiving airdrops are clear, I will focus on the fourth method of airdrop (4) – Retroactive.

The development of retroactive has gone through several stages. Let’s follow its evolution and identify the rules and logic from there. Project details may vary, but mainly we’re looking at the changes over stages as the main purpose.

– First Stage: Brutal, unlimited airdrops, without Sybil

This stage marks the early days of Defi. At that time, UNISWAP was unique and could earn a lot of processing fees each day, but Uniswap itself did not issue money. Why should Uniswap issue tokens if they were still making money and happy, right? But then, Sushiswap emerged, imitating Uniswap but with an upgrade by introducing governance tokens and commitment rewards for SUSHI holders. Thus, it took market share from Uniswap.

This angered Uniswap, and they soon launched their token and conducted airdrops, gifting to early users of their exchange. The 1inch exchange also conducted an airdrop at this time, with the rule being: anyone who traded over $20 would receive an airdrop.

=> Overall, this early stage airdrop was quite basic, as it was the first era of Defi, and the concept of airdrop was still new, so few people knew about and participated, and Sybil was almost non-existent.

– Second Stage: Clear airdrop rules, Sybil appears but is not checked

With the development of Defi, it stimulated enthusiasm across the market, money started flowing in, and various public chains began to emerge. Omso, a project running on COSMOS blockchain, also started airdropping, but its airdrop rules were only for ATOM holders. Similarly, the JUNO airdrop rule in the Cosmos ecosystem was a 1:1 airdrop for ATOM holders.

DYDX, a derivatives exchange, distributed airdrop levels based on user trading volume. The larger the trading volume, the more airdrops.

Paraswap developed more complex rules. For example, it did not count ETH and WETH trading pairs, and users had to meet the requirement of using it once a month for six consecutive months. At the same time, the amount was calculated, and a scoring system was used as a standard for airdrop distribution.

– Third Stage: Stricter rules, and start checking for Sybil

As a decentralized identity tracking DID, ENS also conducted airdrops based on user addresses. If there are many domains in the same address, there will still be only one airdrop. Note that it was in this stage that fairness evaluation began, or in other words, the investigation to limit users from creating multiple clone accounts to hunt for airdrops was conducted.

The focus is on Optimism (OP). It not only designed rules for on-chain interactions but also added cross-chain, governance voting, donations, and other behaviors, while checking for wizardry to find interaction accounts of linked addresses.

APTOS’s airdrop rules – the new public chain – are airdrops for NFT creators and node builders. At the same time, mailbox and Discord rules are cited. Only those who fill out the form and send emails and link Discord accounts can receive the airdrop.

Arbitrum, another recently released airdrop project, also has very complex and changeable rules. At the same time, linked wallet addresses are checked more strictly. And if accounts share the same IP address, they will not be counted.

At the same time, many projects have started investigating IP issues, and IP addresses like cloud servers will also be directly blocked by some projects.

=> Looking back at the history of Airdrops, it’s clear that project airdrop rules have continually evolved, from simple in the beginning to later building airdrop rules to segment users. At the same time, requirements for users have also been refined, and users are classified into different levels. This shows that projects are ready to filter genuine users.

Tips for More Effective Airdrop Hunting

Now that you understand airdrops and how their criteria have increasingly become more demanding, you can imagine that airdrop hunting is not just a matter of performing a few steps and waiting for rewards, but it requires more effort.

How to receive airdrops? Once you understand some ways to receive airdrops, isn’t the rest easy? We won’t explain too much about previous projects, but will start analyzing and thinking from OP.

OP is a blockchain focused on ecosystem prosperity on the chain. Evaluating from OP’s airdrop rules, its method is retroactive, using its public chain and interacting with the on-chain ecosystem to meet a certain standard. Just do that, and you are likely to receive an airdrop. What about ARB? The path to receiving an airdrop is through cross-chain, SWAP, LP, and NFT.

In general, how to receive airdrops depends on the project you are hunting. But the core idea is to see what the project needs – REAL USERS – so try to participate & interact as enthusiastically as possible. Whether you receive an airdrop or not – I can’t guarantee. But here are some tips you should remember before embarking on airdrop hunting for any project:

• Chain of accounts linked with email like Discord, Twitter, Galxe…should always be consistent.

• Always use one wallet address consistently with the above-synced email and link when possible.

• Participate in all possible activities originating from the project. Satellite projects around the network should be done on a reference basis.

• Don’t half-heartedly experience: Meaning you participate, but the project interaction is too little. Because Retroactive rewards are given to users who contribute to the product, not just for participating to get an Airdrop. For example, with AMM projects, if you only make a few symbolic Swaps, you’re likely not to get an Airdrop.

• The source of funds transferred to wallet addresses must be different. For example, each account on a CEX sends to a different wallet address and avoids them interacting with each other.

• Always be prepared for costs: Because airdrops are not always free. The process of experiencing the project sometimes requires us to spend a fee for operations, especially in Ethereum with astronomical gas fees. Many cases have spent a lot of money to participate, but in return did not receive any airdrop.

• Diligently follow the project’s Discord channel. The Discord channel of projects is always the most detailed source of updates on ongoing events. Roles on the project’s Discord are also very important, as they will be the basis for the project to consider airdrops or help you receive corresponding privileges.

• Use a combination of different tools: The same project may appear on various tools. When participating in airdrop hunting or a project’s whitelist, the first thing you need to do is go through the tools to filter out tasks that can be done simultaneously. For example, complete trading tasks belonging to Optimism Quest and also satisfy tasks related to the Optimism network on Layer3.

• Be careful with scam websites and information channels about airdrops. Never click and connect to non-official links.

Above is all the content shared about our airdrop hunting experiences. Through this article, I hope you have grasped the criteria for choosing airdrops, know how to recognize each type of airdrop and their requirements, thereby finding an effective method for airdrop hunting. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below this article. Thank you for reading, and I wish you success in airdrop hunting.