All you need to know about Crypto Airdrops. AKA Free Money.
They say that there’s nothing in the world such as a free lunch.
I find the word Free to be the most ironic word in the history of spoken languages. Everything ever offered to you free of cost usually comes with an attached T&C, or is contingent on an item you purchase prior to it, or is of subs-standard quality, or is a 100 different reasons which I choose not to list.
Hence, I usually run the other direction when someone pitches a “Free of cost” product to me.
However, the world of Crypto gives zero shits about the rules and standardized systems of the normal, traditional world.
Remember James Bond ?
The type of man who follows his own rules, has a self-affirmed code of conduct, an own set of ethics, and who can piss in your drink before walking away with your girl at your Local bar night.
Crypto is the James Bond of the Finance world.
Crypto follows no rules, regulations, or constructs of the typical market. It has it’s own mind, own systems, own set of ethics, and own ecosystem.
And guess what, in the world of Crypto, you absolutely CAN get a free lunch or a coffee or a Toy Lambo by just registering for Airdrops.
“You gotta to be kiddin’ me.”
A while ago Token Start ups realized that there is a lot more value when their token is held on as many wallets as possible. More coins lead to more interest and exposure, which in turn greatly increases the Trading Volume of a particular coin when it gets listed on an exchange.
Then came up with an indigenous solution - Airdrop. And no, I am not referring to the software update here.
Participating in an Airdrop is simple. You discover, or are informed of an Airdrop, fill out a telegram form, give your Ethereum (or relevant coin) wallet address, and Voila ! Free Tokens in your wallet a few weeks from then.
What is it also does is create marketing waves in the crypto ecosystem. People start discovering and talking about “free” tokens, and the word spreads around the community about that particular Token. The word reaches thousands of people, and the cost of advertising - zero.
Compared to an ICO, which initially involves a Private Sale (basically the rich getting richer), followed by a Public sale, where small time investors purchase tokens for ETH or BTC. An Airdrop takes away the payment bit of this process, instead giving more value towards informing people of their offering, and giving every one the chance to own some tokens.
All you need to know about Crypto Airdrops. AKA Free Money.
Originally published by Shaurya Malwa on March 1st 2018 16,487 reads
@shauryamalwaShaurya Malwa
Plus- A few Airdrops I look forward to.
They say that there’s nothing in the world such as a free lunch.
I find the word Free to be the most ironic word in the history of spoken languages. Everything ever offered to you free of cost usually comes with an attached T&C, or is contingent on an item you purchase prior to it, or is of subs-standard quality, or is a 100 different reasons which I choose not to list.
Hence, I usually run the other direction when someone pitches a “Free of cost” product to me.
However, the world of Crypto gives zero shits about the rules and standardized systems of the normal, traditional world.
Remember James Bond ?
The type of man who follows his own rules, has a self-affirmed code of conduct, an own set of ethics, and who can piss in your drink before walking away with your girl at your Local bar night.
Crypto is the James Bond of the Finance world.
My terrible Photoshop.
Crypto follows no rules, regulations, or constructs of the typical market. It has it’s own mind, own systems, own set of ethics, and own ecosystem.
And guess what, in the world of Crypto, you absolutely CAN get a free lunch or a coffee or a Toy Lambo by just registering for Airdrops.
“You gotta to be kiddin’ me.”
Something like this.
A while ago Token Start ups realized that there is a lot more value when their token is held on as many wallets as possible. More coins lead to more interest and exposure, which in turn greatly increases the Trading Volume of a particular coin when it gets listed on an exchange.
Then came up with an indigenous solution - Airdrop. And no, I am not referring to the software update here.
Participating in an Airdrop is simple. You discover, or are informed of an Airdrop, fill out a telegram form, give your Ethereum (or relevant coin) wallet address, and Voila ! Free Tokens in your wallet a few weeks from then.
What is it also does is create marketing waves in the crypto ecosystem. People start discovering and talking about “free” tokens, and the word spreads around the community about that particular Token. The word reaches thousands of people, and the cost of advertising - zero.
Compared to an ICO, which initially involves a Private Sale (basically the rich getting richer), followed by a Public sale, where small time investors purchase tokens for ETH or BTC. An Airdrop takes away the payment bit of this process, instead giving more value towards informing people of their offering, and giving every one the chance to own some tokens.
In an airdrop (or hard fork), tokens are allocated to existing holders of a particular chain — typically Bitcoin or Ethereum. That’s right, instead of buying tokens, they’re simply given away to the holders of another coin.
AIRDROP 101
Let’s dig in to understand the viability of this approach and, most importantly, its implications for Bitcoin and Ether holders.
You’re probably thinking - Why would a project distribute its tokens for free instead of selling them? In many ways, the airdrop (or hard fork) method of distributing tokens is a better way to accomplish the same objectives of an ICO, which are usually three-fold:
Raise Popularity: Getting your token to as many wallets and people as possible for building a strong base of active users, who just might end up being real customers. Breadth of distribution is typically the important metric, particularly given that many projects are trying to jump-start a network effect.
Raise awareness: A lot of monetary interest is built once the token hits exchanges.
Raise capital: To fund the future development and build-out of the project.
Advantages of an airdrop or hard-fork
Breadth of Distribution
The earlier option involved an ICO, or an Initial Coin Offering, through which participants use BTC or ETH to buy tokens. However, the tokens ended up in the hands of a narrow demographic, usually just 30 or 40 thousand odd people. While there’s certainly a lot of money involved right here, there is very less of an awareness.
For a quick retrospect, Bitcoin and Ethereum have millions of users. An airdrop effectively puts your token in the hands of millions. Even if only 1% of users actually engage your project, you’ve likely achieved significantly broader distribution and more engagement than even the most successful token sales.
Awareness
One of the ancillary but important benefits of token sales is that they help raise awareness for your project.
At any given time, there’s a handful of ICO’s and coin hopefuls screaming for your attention. The ecosystem just isn’t designed to handle this, and in the end, only a couple projects, at the most, end up with the exposure they require.
However, your target community might be more likely to take a serious look at your project if they’ve been given a stake — rather than the burden of making a purchase decision.
A very subtle, yet important difference.
People are in a different position when they’ve been given a stake and must decide what to do with it (Sell? Hold? Buy more?). At the very least, this will typically encourage some portion of the community to educate itself about your project.
In this sense, giving away tokens in an airdrop or hard-fork is similar to a guerilla marketing campaign.
Fund Raising
While a handful of the highest-profile ICOs ultimately raised hundreds of millions of dollars, most raise a tiny fraction of those amounts.
Unfortunately like traditional news, you end up listening to only the successes and never the failures.
Again, airdrops can be (and have been) at least as successful in this regard. There’s many potential approaches that a project could take here.
A simple example would be to airdrop 95% of tokens to all holders of Bitcoin (or Ethereum) while the project itself and the team behind it reserves 5% of tokens to fund future development.
Regulatory Risk
Perhaps the most important point of them all. A lot of regulator run-ins occurs when there is cold, hard cash involved.
The governments have shown us time and again, they are VERY interested and suddenly affected when a product is sold and revenues and being made and capital is being generated.
Eliminating this risk is simple - conduct an Airdrop, hehe.
An airdrop could be the path of least resistance (and maximum effect), considering all the above noted points.
Are you doing them yourself?