After 2021’s eccentric NFT craze, the crypto industry has been engulfed by a flurry of ‘airdrop tokens’ as investors scramble to reclaim value on frivolous NFT purchases and eye-watering gas fees.
Airdrop tokens are effectively a marketing tool for platforms to attract and onboard new users.
The latest round began on October 31 with the Ethereum Naming Service rewarding web 3.0 domain holders with ENS tokens in an airdrop with a governance use case. It facilitates participation in the ENS DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation).
But substantial excitement around the airdrop drove the price up 47% overnight from $56.25 to $83.11 in a significant rally that created big expectations for future airdrops with investors flocking to catch the so-called ‘free ETH’ opportunities.
Enter the copycats
This was quickly mimicked by an SOS airdrop rewarding NFT transaction volume (marketing for the OpenDAO), then a GAS airdrop compensating excessive gas fees (access to the GasDAO). Both struggled under significant sell-pressure.
Building on the experiences of SOS and GAS came the LOOKS airdrop – for those that have spent more than 3 ETH on NFTs – with more functional utility (staking to receive a share of transaction fees from the LooksRare‘s new NFT exchange).
The latest offering is WTF – yet another DAO – but this time with an exclusive NFT attached which will enable access to a ‘pro dashboard’ – a multi-chain gas fee checker.
Are these airdrops sustainable?
But how sustainable are the airdrops? As ever, it’s all in the tokenomics and utility.
Unlike ENS attempt to reward long-term backers of its multi-year project, these copycats have been set-up with alarming pace and limited foresight.
SOS token has performed terribly, down -68% from its all-time high, but not nearly as bad as GAS bleeding out -92% since launch. Neither have working products and both had outrageous tokenomic supply – a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
LOOKS seems to have a better outlook – up 48% since launch – with the promise of real staking returns.
WTF token seems promising, and not because of the free NFT or gas-fee checker. Curiously, the tokenomics of this project require users to pay a small 0.01 ETH ‘service fee’ to claim. This is a reward for developers but, once claimed, users receive a ‘referral link’.
The referral link will enable users to onboard their friends for a 50% share of the service fee – something some are calling the ultimate crypto pyramid model – this is likely to push the latest airdrop beyond the initial hype, but for how long?
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