The guide to free money - Airdrops
Missed the Arbitrum airdrop? Check out our newsletter and make sure you are prepared for whats coming next
Follow us on Twitter | Telegram ✅
Market Review
Last week we saw Bitcoin and Ethereum recover from the US banking crisis and the USDC depeg that shook the market. Bitcoin continued its uptrend this week, reaching almost 30k yesterday (tapping the resistance area we spoke about last week), only to drop 5% within minutes shortly after the FOMC meeting on interest rates. Bitcoin is trading now at 28,614$ and Ethereum at 1,836$.
It is a difficult time to predict what’s coming in the next weeks as the macro environment around the failure of banks and the recent SEC actions against Coinbase, Sushiswap, and Justin Sun are certainly not bullish (see news below).
On the upside, a potential switch to ‘stealth QE’ by the FED and a reemerged narrative of Bitcoin as the safe haven when you can’t trust no banks is certainly positive for the price action in the coming weeks. The FED’s decision to just hike 25bps is probably helping as well.
So let’s see how this plays out, in any case, interesting times are ahead.
This week we broke into the resistance area around 28.5-30k and currently staying in exactly that range. For more uptrend, we would love to stay in this area and ideally swap it into support with a few daily candles above 30k and retesting 28.5k (and holding it). If that happens, another 20% move seems likely. On the downside, 25.5k should hold, otherwise, we could revisit the previous lows.
After our prediction of a run towards 29k became reality, we would now expect to retest some of the previous lows in the next two weeks. A test of the 25k area seems likely before we potentially see more of an uptrend. In any case - we love this current volatility as we can dollar-cost average into the markets and just make sure we are prepared for better times to come.
What else happened this week:
Sushiswap was handed a subpoena by the SEC this week, a few days later, Tron founder Justin Sun also got a letter from the SEC for allegedly manipulating the prices of TRX and BTT tokens
The SEC was busy yesterday, Coinbase received a letter from the SEC as well that warned them of possible legal action for breaking securities laws
The guide to free money - Airdrops
Today we had one of the most anticipated launches of the year - Arbitrum started trading on basically all major exchanges. And with it came an airdrop to around 625,000 eligible addresses for an average of ˜1,850 tokens as shown in this Dune dashboard. At current prices that equals 2,600$ on average for this airdrop for basically a few hours of work and a few transactions on the Arbitrum network. That’s ridiculous - considering that the median income in the US is approximately $4,500 a month, regular folks have to work for this amount almost three weeks.
Best Airdrops in the past?
But was the Arbitrum airdrop a unique, once-in-a-cycle event or are there frequent airdrops similar to Arbitrum? Well, the Arbitrum airdrop was definitely one of the biggest ones in the past, but there were others that were equally significant or even had a greater impact on the space.
Uniswap (UNI): The OG airdrop came right at the beginning of the last bull market to more than 250k addresses - receiving at least 400 UNI each worth 2,000$ each or 16,000$ a few months later during the bull market
Optimism (OP): The optimism airdrop in mid-2022 was sent to 250k addresses as well, each receiving between 410 and 28,000 OP. At a price of 1.40$ at launch it was equally valued as the UNI airdrop.
So, is an airdrop essentially free money?
As always, it depends. Airdrops are a popular means for crypto projects to distribute their tokens to potential users and supporters. In return, projects expect you to promote or test their project. With some projects, such as Uniswap, the airdrop was essentially free money, as most people used Uniswap anyway and received the airdrop for free on top. However, in most cases, becoming eligible for those airdrops requires some effort and time. If your time is valuable, then that airdrop was not free.
Different types of airdrops?
The one for all - Uniswap (UNI): This is a prime example of a retroactive airdrop that rewarded users who had used the DEX before. This was basically everyone in the crypto industry at that point. It was also early in the last cycle (2020), and airdrops of this magnitude were not common. Therefore, it was not gamed as much as current airdrops.
The one for the community - Optimism (OP): The OP airdrop was an example of an airdrop focused on the potential community of the project. It included users of the Optimism ecosystem and its projects, as well as long-term Ethereum users, with the hope of drawing in users from other blockchains.
The one for the farmers - Blur (BLUR): While the BLUR airdrop also focused on its community, unlike the OP airdrop, it mainly targeted a specific set of users - LP providers and traders, especially those with significant volume. As a result, it led to small airdrops for the average user and a lot of incentive for wash trading and overall bad behavior to game the airdrop for whales.
How to get Airdrops?
Almost the most important question, isn’t it? Unfortunately delving into this would blow up the newsletter into a full-on book. Instead, we recommend the best resources for hunting airdrops.
First, sign up for an airdrop notification service such as Earndrop. Our friends at Earndrop will notify you whenever an airdrop is ready to be claimed with your address - and they also have a free tier!
Then it’s usually a good look to check out this Dashboard on Defillama frequently. It’s a list of the most popular protocols that are yet to launch a token (and therefore an airdrop).
Once you identified a few projects, make sure to check out their Telegrams, Discords, and especially their websites. If they are already live or have a testnet, it’s well worth putting in some trades and interacting with their protocol.
What Airdrops could be next?
That’s always hard to say, however, we strongly believe that these four projects could be amongst the most promising airdrops in the next months. Check the tweet below for a guide on how to become eligible for each of these airdrops:
ZKSync: A layer-two blockchain for Ethereum that uses zk-rollups to enable fast, cheap, and secure transactions
Starkware: Starkware is a company that builds layer-two scaling solutions for Ethereum that use zero-knowledge proofs to enable high-throughput and low-latency computation
LayerZero: LayerZero is a project that aims to create a cross-chain interoperability protocol for layer-two networks using zero-knowledge proofs and optimistic rollups.
Lens Protocol: Lens Protocol is a project that aims to create a user-owned, open social graph on the Polygon blockchain that any application can plug into.
Action for this week
In this section, we will summarise the main actionable items from each newsletter and other posts that are worth reading
Make sure to sign up for Earndrop and have them notify you of any airdrops
Choose one of the four Protocols above and start doing some activities that might qualify for an airdrop
Some uplifting crypto reading? Go read over Arthur Hayes's latest essay on the impact of the Fed’s new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) and why it will lead to new all-time highs
Follow us on Twitter | Telegram ✅