Cryptocurrencies are still new to many people, and getting an account with these trading platforms can be a tough and costly process. While there are prospective investors and users willing to invest, the costs involved in purchasing well-known cryptocurrencies and the general process deters many from plunging into this business. Such a barrier hampers prospects for adoptions and usage of digital currencies at a large scale.
Crypto airdrops, one of the trends that can be considered revolutionary in this context. Airdrop is the distribution of the tokens or coins in the wallet address to many individuals mainly as a way of marketing the new cryptocurrency or project. It assists in reducing the entry barrier hence allowing individuals to commence involvement in the process of utilization and trading of cryptocurrencies with minimal risk.
Before we delve into the analysis of an entry barrier, however, it is necessary to consider an unbiased opportunity, which is the essence of crypto airdrops. They give away free tokens to the users in most cases, where one does not even need to do much such as joining a list or following a project on social media. It not only assists new user registration but also improves exposure and its utilisation for freshly-listed projects. For instance, successful airdrops done by such projects as Stellar and Uniswap have contributed greatly towards their growth and expansion of their user base in the market.
The following benefits should be considered as airdrops are not just limited to getting free coins:
- Firstly, users are able to expand their knowledge regarding various projects in the crypto space and actually engage in the execution of that knowledge.
- Secondly, one can engage in airdrops with very little investment, thirdly, airdrops make users part of the crypto ecosystem.
What Are Crypto Airdrops?
Crypto projects do airdrops to onboard users. The best way to incentivise people to use your chain, dapp or play your game is to give them tokens. Doing an airdrop brings in early users and builds hype. It also allows the project to optimise its tech and make improvements. But for you, farming airdrops is just a great way to accumulate some capital, especially if you don’t have much to start with. And as a side note, you learn a lot about crypto and Defi by farming airdrops, which is a very valuable skill.
How To Farm Testnet Airdrops?
There are a few different ways to farm airdrops. Each type will depend on how much time you have and how much capital you have to use for airdrops. Let’s start with the cheapest ones. Testnet farming. It wasn’t until recently that testnets were giving guaranteed rewards. But recently, we’ve seen projects explicitly state that their testnet is incentivised. Three examples of this are DOP, Metis and SAVM. Now don’t go running to do their testnets.
DOP and Metis are a great example of a testnet farming with clear instructions. DOP literally gave you a step by step of what to do on the testnet. Metis did the same, but they also gave you points. SAVM, on the other hand, simply said that their testnet users would be rewarded. But it was up to you to figure out what to do. This is pretty standard when it comes to airdrops. In fact, most projects that have an airdrop coming will not reveal what you need to do or what their criteria are until after a snapshot has been taken.
A snapshot is a moment in time where the project will collect all the data from wallets that have been used up until that date. Then they will filter these wallets according to criteria they set out and calculate the amount of tokens people get. Now, because testnets are free, they are arguably the airdrops that will require you to spend the most time on them.
They’re incredibly popular right now because everyone wants to farm airdrops without spending any money. It’s often the top users that will get rewarded. So you will want to do loads of transactions on testnets. Depending on the type of project, these transactions will be making swaps, bridging, using the dapp, taking trades, adding liquidity to the pool and faucet claims. These transactions are very similar to what you would be doing on mainnets, except this time they’re free. One of the current testnet campaigns you could do is Mind Network.
They have a Galxe campaign that shows you what you can do on their app. If you follow along with the campaign and then repeat those transactions until the snapshot is announced, you could be eligible for the airdrop.It’s never a guarantee unless a project has explicitly stated that certain actions will get you an airdrop. This is something that you should always keep in mind when airdrop farming.
How To Farm Quests & Tasks?
Galxe, Layer3, Zealy and Intract are all websites which have gamified exploring dapps and chains. Projects like Manta rewarded users with airdrops for completing tasks on these sites. An airdrop like this you can farm right now is Linea.
Now, their airdrop is not officially confirmed, but let’s be real. They gave people NFTs for completing testnet tasks on Galxe. They had a big Linea Voyage campaign with Intract and now they have Linea Park on Layer3. Since their Linea Voyage campaign, they have been rewarding participants with Linea XP or $LXP.
It’s a token that has no value. Linea Park is a great example of how projects will guide people through their ecosystem. There are tasks for people to do so they can explore games and dapps.
For example, if you go to their Unfettered quest here, they give you a bit of information about the game and then comes your quest. Once you’ve completed it, you get rewarded with $LXP. Not every project has such an in-depth guide like Linea Park. In fact, the majority don’t. But a lot of them do have ongoing tasks that will reward you with XP, points or NFTs on the platforms. It’s definitely worth doing them if you can. You don’t want to miss out on an airdrop simply because you didn’t bother doing these tasks.
How To Find Airdrops?
Now you know a bit more about how to farm airdrops. A lot of projects will have testnet with Galxe campaigns The big question is how do you find airdrops?
Your first method is Twitter. Get on there and interact with airdrop accounts. There are a lot of accounts that give people step by step instructions or guides for specific projects. One of the biggest tips that can be given to find the best airdrops is to get a feel for how many people are farming in airdrop. The more people farming, the less each person gets, especially if you’re starting late. Your second method is to check how much money a project has raised. If a chain has raised a ton of money but they don’t have a token yet, then chances are a token is coming.
This doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to do an airdrop, but if they’ve got questing campaigns or some points system, it’s a bit of a giveaway that they are. Now, some projects may also hide airdrop announcements in their tokenomics or whitepaper. The Holy Grail of airdrop farming is finding a project with a big raise, no token, mentions of potential airdrops or rewards in their tokenomics, and not many people are talking about it yet. And the final method is to check dapps on a chain you’re farming that doesn’t have a token yet.
A good rule of thumb is to find a Dex for swapping on the chain that doesn’t have a token. By using that Dex, you’re potentially farming two airdrops at once. The airdrop of the chain and the airdrop for the Dex. Of course, that isn’t a guarantee. Make sure to check if there are any signs that point towards that Dex doing an airdrop. If this all feels a bit overwhelming, don’t worry.