The Airdrop Spectacle Comes to an End: The Landscape Changes for Web3 Project Parties

Recently, many teams focused on acquiring Airdrops have reported facing difficulties and even called for rights protection. This wave of actions by the project party seems to have been carefully planned, with the scale gradually shrinking, and in the case of a recent Layer 2 project, they didn't even bother to disguise it.

The Airdrop Controversy of Modular Blockchain Projects

In mid-April this year, a highly anticipated modular blockchain project announced its Airdrop rules, marking the beginning of this round of "tricks" by the project party. As a leader in data availability layers, this project has raised a total of $70 million in seed and Series A funding, with a strong lineup of investors.

However, the subsequently released Airdrop claiming website disappointed many users. Many participants in the testnet and active users of the second-layer network, who were previously confident about receiving rewards, received "not eligible" results when checking their qualifications. This sparked an uproar online, with doubts arising, and some even pointed to the project party for manipulating the process.

Furthermore, the token holders of another modular settlement layer project that has a potential collaboration with this project originally expected to receive an Airdrop, but ended up empty-handed. It is reported that even users participating in node operations did not get what they hoped for. Some large holders stated that despite having set up thousands of nodes, they did not receive a single Airdrop, which is in serious contradiction to the project party's claim of randomly selecting 5% of the nodes.

Under strong protests from community users, the project party ultimately launched the second phase Airdrop to appease some of the dissatisfaction.

The "Silence is Golden" Strategy of Star Projects

Another highly anticipated project has taken a completely different approach - refusing to disclose the Airdrop rules. This practice has sparked more controversy.

The project's co-founder stated on social media that to avoid unnecessary disputes, they would not disclose the detailed rules for the token's genesis Airdrop. They claimed that the goal is fairness but admitted that they cannot meet everyone's expectations. As the doubts grew louder, the founder seemed to lose patience, making even stronger statements on Discord.

"PUA" Tactics of AI Computing Power Platform

An AI computing power platform project saw its private placement valuation soar to $1 billion after securing a $30 million investment in March this year. The project promises to distribute 32 million tokens as an Airdrop to computing power miners, which has led to a large influx of users participating in mining on the platform from March to May.

However, the platform does not display users' points status, which makes miners feel anxious. Some miners describe this practice as "PUA," requiring them to stay online for a long time without revealing the actual points, resulting in everyone investing a lot of effort but being unable to determine the returns.

Due to the fixed total amount of tokens allocated to miners for the project, while the computational power of the machines participating in mining is unlimited, coupled with the complex maintenance and high investment costs, many studios and teams ultimately find that they may not be able to recover their costs.

Controversial Airdrop of Layer 2 Projects

Finally, an airdrop from a well-known Layer 2 project has sparked greater controversy. The project had previously raised $258 million, with investors including several top institutions.

However, the results of its Airdrop distribution have surprised many. For example, the largest NFT market on the network publicly stated that it did not receive any Airdrop, questioning whether this is a joke. Even more concerning is that there are 12,000 addresses that received Airdrops but have no interaction records, and those that received larger ecological Airdrops seem to be affiliated with the project party.

Reflection on the Essence of Airdrop

Looking back at the frenzy of internet companies giving out red envelopes to attract new users ten years ago, and now seeing e-commerce platforms that started with red envelopes becoming stingy, it is not difficult to realize that this is actually an inevitable process of project development. The project party always needs to weigh the best use of a limited budget.

Early crypto projects found that directly allocating funds to users was more effective than advertising due to the high interaction threshold. However, as many studios began to falsify users in bulk, the project party naturally adjusted their strategy.

Today, with the development of technology, the usage threshold of many projects has significantly decreased. It is foreseeable that in the future, airdrops of crypto projects may become like the red envelopes of today's internet products, where only a very small number of genuine users can receive a small reward. The days of relying on "shearing sheep" for survival are probably gone for good.

For those who run studios, it may be time to consider changing careers. If you must participate in Airdrop activities, it is advisable to do so at zero cost to minimize risks.