People who have been fortunate enough to be eligible for the AQUA airdrop may be quite confused about what exactly it is and if it is legitimate. I will quickly clear up the second query with an upfront yes. The airdrop is legitimate and there appears to be no reason or way for it to be a scam. It really is just free money. The second question may take a bit more to pull apart but I nevertheless will attempt to do just that.
What is AQUA?
According to the description on LOBSTR (where I am accessing the airdrop), AQUA is a new liquidity management layer for Stellar. From my understanding, it is a crypto way of printing money to improve the economy. As AQUA is native to the Stellar ecosystem and it has a value that hasn’t taken away from any other token (there may be a complex economic argument against this, but I will leave that for you to decide, I am just going for the basics), there has been an injection. There will now be more liquidity to improve the function of the markets.
Another aspect of AQUA is that it is also an incentive token for market makers. When they provide liquidity in the market they get a reward in the form of AQUA.
Aquarius
AQUA is the native token for Aquarius, and doubles not only as a liquidity incentive but also as a governance token. Holding AQUA allows one to vote on chain and help pave the future of this token. These votes decide on the rewards liquidity makers will receive, ensuring that there can be no easily obtained monopoly that allows the whales to make a fortune at the communities expense. Ultra Stellar, which is the parent of Aquarius, will help create the core protocols embedded inside of this project.
Ultra Stellar aims to be a paradigm shifter for global finance, allowing every single currency in the world to be exchanged in one place. Aquarius is a vital part of this, as without the proper incentives the major players that decide the future of finance will never give Ultra Stellar the possibility of proving their worth.
Personal Opinion
If you are eligible for these airdrops, I highly recommend claiming them, as they are in installments and only available for one month at a time. There is no downside to it and you can get roughly $70 in the next installment with the effort of pressing a button. The developers of this project seem to be highly strategic, and although their ultimate goal may not be achieved, they are certainly worth following as something special may happen.
James Clarke