Nowadays It is impossible to do a successful startup without good marketing. Any new project, whether it's from the music sphere, the film industry or IT, needs advertising to achieve product recognition. The trend hasn’t bypassed cryptocurrency. Today, when there are a lot of successful and not so successful projects on the market, you need to be able to attract an audience and gain their trust in your project.

One of the currently popular ways to develop a new coin is an airdrop.

An airdrop is a kind of marketing strategy in which a certain number of tokens are distributed free of charge to participants and investors of the project. Both long-time users and those who fulfill the conditions previously set by the developers can receive coins.

As mentioned above, this procedure takes place to increase the audience's confidence in the product. An airdrop is a great opportunity for young projects to win the hearts of people and increase the popularity of the project. Many users want to get tokens for free. Some coins are sold immediately after receipt, while others are held tokens on their wallets for up to several years, waiting since coins’ value increase tens or even hundreds of times (as it was with Bitcoin).

According to ForkLog, in 2021, the most profitable airdrops were Lido (LDO) and OpenDAO (SOS). They brought 148% and 150% profit to the holders, respectively. Also, more than 80% of the distributed tokens reached a maximum in their value only in the first month, then the price dropped slightly. The downward trend in the price is noticeable because many cryptocurrency users neglect the HODL (buy and hold) strategy. Prolonged market instability is added to this factor.

However, even in such a seemingly harmless action as an airdrop, in which you risk only your time, you can lose your savings if you neglect cyber security. Remember, under the pretext of free distribution of coins, scammers can also take over your personal information, gain access to your account and decorate your savings. In real airdrops, you won’t be asked for any personal or unnecessary information.

There are two types of airdrops:

  1. Incentive: created to distribute tokens among everyone who wants to contribute to the development of the crypto project.
  2. Automatic: means the distribution of funds that remain after the hard fork.

Bitcoin distributions have been carried out a few times. When the BitcoinCash network was launched, a certain amount of BCH was transferred to the wallets of BTC holders.

Positive aspects of airdrops:

  • The opportunity to multiply your passive income;
  • There is a chance that the coin will grow several times.

Negative sides:

  • The received coin may become worthless;
  • There is no distribution in the bonus system.

Now, using concrete examples of tokens, we will consider the most successful airdrops and those that have suffered losses.

1. The most active growth was shown by the OpenDAO coin (SOS) already mentioned by us.

The project distributed the coin among the participants of the OpenSea NFT marketplace who made purchases on the platform in ETH. At the time of issue, in December 2021, the value of the coin was $0.000002. The first snapshot occurred on December 23, 2021. The next day, the token price dropped to $0.000001, and on December 25, it reached its maximum of $0.00001. On 01.01.2022, the coin was trading for $0.000005, which was a 150% increase in value.

2. In second place is the Lido token (LDO).

The coin drop occurred at the end of January 2021, in the amount of 4 million LDO. The value of the coin was $1.47, but at the end of March it fell sharply to $0.51. On August 20, the price reached as much as $7.30 (LDO’s maximum). As of January 1, 2022, the coin was trading at $3.64. As a result, we have an increase of 148%.

3. The third position is occupied by SuperRare (RARE).

With an increase in value of 71%. Early users of the SuperRare NFT marketplace took part in the distribution. A drop of 150 million coins (15% of the total amount) occurred in early August. The cost of one token was $0.58. At the beginning of the year, the cost reached $0.99.

The anti-record for 2021

1. ChainSwap (ASAP) with a loss in value of 97%.

The ChainSwap project launched a drop of tokens (April 2021) ASAP among users of AntiMatter (MATTER) and ChainSwap. Later the coins could be exchanged for Binance Smart Chain coins. But in July, there were two hacker attacks, after which the scammers withdrew $ 5 million. As a result, the value of the token fell from the initial $2.98 to $0.10 (as of 01.01.2022).

2. The second place was taken by projects from ZKSwap (ZKS) and Pangolin (PNG) with a loss in value of 96%.

The release of ZKSwap (ZKS) occurred in February in the amount of 80 million. After the snapshot on the 25th, the token price of $ 11 went down sharply and could not recover. At the time of the drop, the price was $9.81, and on January 1, 2022, the coin was valued at $ 0.37.

A very promising project from Pangolin (PNG) also failed. The cost of the token at the time of issue was $16.75 and caused such a stir. The users almost completely stopped transactions on Avalanche. In the first days of the release, the maximum price was $18.85 and then the cost collapsed. 01.01.2022 the token was trading for $0.77.

If you still want to become the owner of tokens received through an airdrop, then here are some tips for you on how to get the most benefits and earn:

1.Find out all information about the project and its creators

Find as many details as possible about the project itself, about the team and their experience in the crypto field.

2. Study the conditions for obtaining tokens

In many airdrops, the conditions for obtaining tokens aren’t limited only to a repost in the social media or networks. Sometimes, in order to receive coins, you need to be a holder of some NFT, or at the time of the snapshot have a certain number of transactions and their volume. Don’t also forget to find out the conditions and terms of withdrawal of the distributed coins.

3. The number of coins distributed

The number of dropped tokens also plays an important role. A strong project won’t immediately release a large number of coins, because in the future this may negatively affect the value of the coin and the fate of the project.

4. Don't believe promises

Too loud statements about the 100% success of the coin can be false, which will lead to a waste of your time and a failure of expectations.

Conclusion

Summing up, airdrops are not stable and significant ways of passive earnings, but they give a great opportunity for beginners to become the owner of cryptocurrency without any investments.