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As you may know now, airdrops are free distributions of tokens to a community. They became highly popular as they are beneficial to both crypto companies and community members. They promote new projects, build a solid community, raise market interest, give power to investors, and more. This is why almost $4 billion in crypto airdrops were handed out this year.

Airdrops in a Few Words

An airdrop is a strategic tool for crypto projects to reach their goals in the short and long term, they:

• Help to gain visibility
• Attract and retain investors
• Give back and reward supportive and active communities
• Increase the token volume
• Give power to the community (right to vote, have a say in important decisions, etc)

They can be distributed entirely all at once or distributed across time (per season or quarter…).

For more input about the topic please refer to our article about airdrops.

This Year’s Airdrops

The three biggest airdrops so far this year were:

• Jupiter – Based on the Solana (SOL) network. 955K wallets that interacted with their platform were eligible for their airdrop. They offered $1.35 billion.
• Starknet – This project is based on the Ethereum (ETH) network. 700 million STRK were offered to their community.
• And Notcoin – They offered $2.7 billion to eligible members of their community. The latter is based on Open Network (TON).

They were followed by several other projects on Solana and Ethereum networks such as Ether.fi, Wormhole, Wen, and others.

The Biggest Airdrops in History

Some of the biggest airdrops in the crypto history between 2020 and 2023 were the following:

• Uniswap with $6.4 million
• Apecoin with $3.5 million
• DYDX with $2 million
• Arbitrum with $1.9 million
• Ethereum Name Service (ENS) with $1.8 million
• Internet Computer with $1.7 million

They all aimed to reward their existing communities but also to gain more visibility along with new adopters whilst promoting engagement.

The Downside of Crypto Airdrops  

Although there are lots of benefits in airdrops as seen above, there are also some downsides. With the rise of airdrops and their popularity, other types of investors have started to show interest. Individuals who are only interested in claiming the airdrop and do not necessarily support the project.

This is why the teams behind the projects now take extra precautions to only reward genuine community members. Which unfortunately makes it harder to qualify for airdrops even for these genuine members.

Upcoming Airdrops

There are more airdrops to come this year, such as:

• LayerZero – Community members who interacted with their protocol before May 1^st this year, will be eligible for their airdrop. They will have until September 20^th, 2024, to claim their tokens.
• zkSync – You can check your eligibility on their page. The airdrop will be allocated to users (up to 89%) and contributors (up to 11%). The campaign will run from June 17^th, 2024, until January 3^rd,2025. 
• Metamask – To be eligible for the MetaMask airdrop users will need an active wallet as well as at least 0.1 ETH in that wallet.
• Wormhole – Users can be eligible if they interacted with their platform before February 6^th, 2024. You can still verify your eligibility on their page.

Keep an eye out and make sure to follow crypto projects closely to make it on time and qualify for airdrops!