原文作者:Axel Bitblaze
Original text: twitter
编译：深潮TechFlow
With all the major airdrops (such as $ZRO and $ZK) completed, the sentiment surrounding the airdrops seems to have receded. So, is the airdrop beta over? Are they still worth farming? What's next for the airdrop? I'll share my thoughts in this tweet.
What's next for the airdrop?
I wrote an article about the "current airdrop beta" a few months ago, which mentioned that there are three major airdrop projects that have not yet been launched and are now all completed, and here is my take on the upcoming beta.
(See tweet for details)
Is the airdrop dead?
To put it simply, no. The longer answer is that the airdrop situation will change.
It can be understood this way that in the game, there will always be that kind of cheats or strategies that are too powerful and that will eventually be weakened when too many players start using or abusing it.
It's the same with airdrops, the old methods will be nerfed, but that doesn't mean the game is over.
Before we get started, let's break down which factors have the most impact on airdrops and how they can play a role:
- financing and valuation;
- the extent of hype and dilution;
- Market sentiment vs. FDV at launch;
Now, there's a lot of noise about FDV at launch, but I think it's a bigger piece of the puzzle:
- Retail investors want projects to be listed at a lower FDV so they can bid for new tokens and make a profit.
- The airdrop party wants to get a higher FDV so that it can be sold when the token is released.
The project was squeezed on two fronts:
- Retail Investors: "Your tokens are too expensive, and I'm not going to provide exit liquidity for the Maoists." ”
- Fluffing Party/Community: "List at a good FDV price, otherwise the airdrop will be peanuts and we will fool you fiercely." ”
The current situation? This is the battle of the project vs the hairy party.
The project team tried to avoid making it easy for the Maoists to exit, and at the same time to please retail investors by listing at a lower FDV.
Nowadays, even T1 CEXs are more inclined to issue tokens at a lower FDV. The retail investor wins, and you can get a VC valuation without vesting.
This is the case with the recently launched $ZK and $ZRO, and of course, market conditions.
I think they don't want to have a high exit from the Maoists, but rather want to sell at a lower valuation and then sell aggressively later like $SEI and $SUI did.
While the situation is different for $W, $DYM, and $STRK, they are released at extremely high FDV (fully diluted valuations) and gradually lose value.
Those who received the airdrop were happy, but there were few market buyers at these valuations. Even staking failed to prevent the value of $W from falling.
So, factor 1 is really out of our control. We need to focus on the factors that we can control.
The reason why I say this is a good correction and that a change in strategy is needed because the current market environment has been heavily inflated by certain criteria, resulting in market imbalances.
I'm reminded of the same scenario in the early days of ICOs, when most IDOs (initial decentralized exchange offerings) achieved 100-500x returns, and people could make a lot of money with a $50-$100 investment.
The same happened in the early airdrops, where by spending $50-$100 in fees, we were able to earn a 100x return on the airdrop tokens, which is equivalent to $5,000 in earnings.
Later, this evolved into a "pay to win" situation:
- For IDOs: Stake our Launchpad tokens to get allocations.
- For airdrops: Provide liquidity and lock up funds on our chain/protocol.
What are the disadvantages?
For IDOs, when the music stops, the token loses value. For airdrops, you need to pray that the protocol won't be hacked.
Anyway, let's move on.
Projects may opt for linear airdrops, which isn't ideal for petty cashiers, so that's another dilemma.
If you have enough funds, then a linear airdrop might be right for you.
(See tweet for details)
For investors with low capital:
As the market environment changes, we need to change some habits:
- Stop over-chasing hot airdrops.
- Stop checking rankings with those useless Dune dashboards, which only exaggerate random metrics.
None of your favorite protocols use these metrics.
I think these dashboards just give you a mental state of mind, "I'm not doing a good job", and then get stuck in a vicious cycle of wasting unnecessary money and time trying to meet those random criteria.
For low-capital farmers, there are two strategies:
- Sybil attacks low-level allocations: obtaining small allocations through multiple accounts.
- Look for projects that are less popular but have good financing, and get involved early.
I think it's a good risk-reward strategy to go down the tiers, where you spend less money and less time, but still get a good return.
Historically, low-level assignment successes:
- Etherfi: The last day deposit made you $900.
- Eigenlayer:在 Eigenlayer 上仅投入 1 美元就获得了 110 个代币。
- Jupiter:几次 Solana 交互就获得了 200 个$JUP代币和$WEN。
Imagine that spending $50 on Pendle YT qualifies you for $800 worth of $ETHFI and 110 $EIGEN.
Even in the worst-case scenario, where the project is completely linearly distributed, you don't waste too much time or money on low-level farming, so the disappointment won't be too great.
For those who have been masturbating to high-level projects (e.g. $ZRO) for a long time:
If you end up with someone who has a similar low-level assignment, it may feel unworthy.
Factor 2: Dilution (or number of hairy parties)
As the number of participants increases, dilution becomes real and fast.
So the next trend is in farming, where there is a fair amount of money raised but not very popular projects (there are many).
The smaller the number of hairy parties, the more tokens will be allocated to each wallet.
In this case, FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) is not so important because the tokens are basically distributed to a small number of farmers.
@KintoXYZ did a similar job and could have good results.
Example: Let's say two projects each airdrop 5% of their supply
- Hot project: Allocated to 100,000 people, a high FDV (fully diluted valuation) is required to meet those 100,000 people.
- Unpopular project: Allocated to 10,000 people, only a reasonable FDV is required.
The real question is: how to find these treasure items?
The best tool is Cryptorank.
Use filters, for example, if you want to search for projects that don't have tokens on Solana, go to the filter > the Sol ecosystem.
Now you need to filter further based on the type of protocol you want to farm.
(See video for details)
I usually filter by: Bridge/DeFi/DEXs, as these protocols have more on-chain interactions and early participation can leave a good footprint.
(See video for details)
Once an item is found, check its activity: View their profile activity: Are there any events going on? How many people participated?
Which projects are most likely to issue tokens?
Many protocols have raised significant amounts of capital, but their valuations are unknown.
I prioritize them in the following order:
- Projects with known valuations: This can give you a general idea of what FDV will be at launch.
- Projects backed by specific VCs: More on that will be discussed in a future post.
Some VCs are the obvious choice. I plan to dedicate a post to this discussion, but from an airdrop perspective, I'm primarily interested in the following VC-backed projects: Jump, Binance, and Multicoin Capital.
Most of these VCs are clearly invested for the token, and Binance-backed projects have been doing well recently.
Unusual Factoriooo: Second Round Airdrop
I don't think we've seen a wave of these kinds of airdrops yet, but they have potential, and I've seen this strategy work well.
80% of people left the protocol after the Initial Coin Generation (TGE) event because they only received a small number of tokens, but a portion remained.
We all laugh at those post-TGE project metrics, but does that mean there are fewer haircuts now?
Even if the token launch doesn't perform well, there is still hope for a bounce like $SEI and outperform.
Maybe you can pick up the projects that will allocate a large supply to the second round. For example:
Parcl: It's very easy to rank through LP now because PVP is over and if Solana goes up, it can still go up. Wormhole: The next community airdrop will be unlocked in a few weeks, and the trading volume is very low right now.
Final Factor: Strengths and Research
The dilution is real now, unlike the situation during the original airdrop period, when awareness was lower.
It's best to get involved early, study the project carefully, and see if the whitepaper mentions tokens. Get some early roles/OATs.
It doesn't matter if it's diluted later, we remember sharing Elixir in Discord and no one jerked it off at the time, but it became popular later. But we got some early characters at that point and left an initial footprint that might have helped with the airdrop.
For example, the Lista DAO offers a nice airdrop to early OAT holders.
In the current market environment, extracting maximum value is key, and there are no shortcuts. Many projects will bring you thousands of dollars in airdrop revenue through low-cost operations.
Prioritize upcoming projects over medium- and long-term projects that last for two years.
Divert four-figure earnings into hot topics or trends like meme coins and AI instead of larger cat masturbation projects.
If you are a newbie or a low-capital masturbator, the best strategy is:
- Get a three- to four-figure airdrop with a low investment.
- Shift these earnings to hot topics like meme coins, AI, etc., rather than larger airdrop projects like ZRO and ZK.
We are near the bottom of the market and altcoins (Alts) are about to start a big rally. Don't give up, don't lock up your liquidity in unnecessary long-term fluffing.
It is relatively easy to make money in a unilateral rising market.
The summary is that the airdrop is not dead.
- But don't overdo chasing hot airdrops for the sake of the Dune dashboard.
- Try to masturbate low-level allocations (with a good risk-reward ratio).
- Research projects that don't have buzz but are well-funded and have great products, and get involved early.