Simple Airdrop Guide
Quick Intro To Airdrops
An airdrop is when a crypto project distributes aka ‘airdrops’ a token to certain users who are eligible for the ‘drop’.
Airdrops vary widely in value and difficulty to ‘farm’, from a few cents to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on
- the maturity of the network,
- its valuation or the money it raised pre-ICO,
- the requirements and eligibility criteria,
- the general adoption and use case already deployed on the distributed ledger,
- the sentiment and hype,
- and, most importantly, the size of its community.
Largest Airdrop Examples
Arbitrum, in 2023
In March of 2023 for example, the Arbitrum network dropped 12.5% of its total token supply to approx. 600,000 individual wallets.
It was the largest airdrop, valued at $1.7 Bio US. The average wallet got $2,300 US worth of ARB tokens.
One gritty airdrop farmer apparently “farmed” this airdrop with +500 wallets, eligibility netting him more than $2 Mio US.
Jupiter Exchange, in 2024
Jup.AG is a Solana-based exchange that dropped $700 million worth of its JUP token to nearly a million wallets. That’s $700 per wallet.
I got 400x JUP tokens, valued at approx. $200, as well as 650,000 WEN tokens, valued at $50. In total, $250 of free money for being a user of their excellent exchange!
Recent Airdrops I Received
In the past two months, I received the following airdrops – and to be honest, without doing anything for it.
Platform | Project | Token | Amount | Value | Value now |
Cosmos | Celestia | TIA | 200 | $400 | $3,600 |
Celestia | Dymension | DYM | 400 | $2,000 | $2,800 |
Celestia | Altlayer | ALT | 100 | $30 | $50 |
Solana | Jupiter Exchange | JUP | 400 | $240 | $200 |
Solana | Wen Memecoin | WEN | 650,000 | $30 | $50 |
Solana | Pyth | PYTH | 1,100 | $300 | $600 |
Total | $3,000 | $7,300 |
How Are Airdrops Distributed?
Airdrops happen in two main ways:
- Assets are sent directly to users’ wallets, or,
- Users need to claim their airdrop by visiting the project’s website.
When an airdrop is announced, the project typically outlines certain eligibility criteria.
In the following simple airdrop guide, I am sharing my best tips for my favorite low-effort, upcoming airdrops.
Simple Airdrop Guide #1 – Eigenlayer
What You Need
- at least 0.5 ETH
- no ETH yet? Create an account on Nexo, on-ramp some fiat and buy some ETH
- no wallet yet? I recommend the 100% free Rabby Wallet for Chrome/Brave/Firefox/..
Once you have some ETH in your wallet, you can go ahead.
Potential Airdrops On Ethereum
Airdrop #1 – Eigenlayer
Eigenlayer is a restaking protocol helping Ethereum to become more decentralized and secure, by enabling staked ETH to be used as crypto-economic security in exchange for protocol fees and rewards.
I believe Eigenlayer will become the largest airdrop in 2024
How To Participate
1/ Head over to Eigenlayer.xyz
2/ Connect your wallet, e.g. my favorite one 👉 Rabby Wallet
3/ Click on Beacon Chain Ether
4/ Deposit ETH directly, or any restaked ETH you hold
That’s it! From this moment onward, you are collecting “restaked Eigenlayer points“.
Simple Airdrop Guide #2 – Ether.fi
If Eigenlayer currently does not accept new ETH deposits because the cap is reached once again, there is a great workaround.
Earn Eigenlayer as well as Ether. fi points effortlessly, by simply staking ETH and receiving eETH, the liquid re-staking token of Ether.fi, which you can use in other DeFi platforms.
How To Participate
1/ Head over to Ether.fi.
2/ Click on eETH in the top menu
3/ Add the ETH you like to stake, incl. any Lido stETH, Coinbase cbETH, etc. you hold
4/ Hit Stake and you are done!
That’s it. Now, you participate in two potential airdrops: Eigenlayer + Ether.fi!
Simple Airdrop Guide #3 – Renzo Protocol
Similar to Ether.fi, the Renzo Protocol is built on top of Eigenlayer, helping to further secure and scale Ethereum.
How To Participate
1/ Head over to renzoprotocol.com
2/ Click on Restake in the left-hand menu
3/ Deposit ETH or any liquid staking token like stETH, swETH, cbETH, etc.
And you are done!
Same here, you are now participating in two potential airdrops: Eigenlayer as well as Renzo Protocol‘s airdrop.
Simple Airdrop Guide #4 – Swell Network
Similar to the three projects already mentioned above, Swell Network is another project-based and built on top of Eigenlayer.
It’s one of my favorite ones!
How To Participate
1/ Head over to app.swellnetwork.io
2/ Click on Stake in the top menu
3/ Stake the amount of ETH you like, or click on Restake (top menu) if you already hold some liquid staked token like stETH, cbETH, rsETH, etc.
4/ Once you have Swell Eth, swELL, go back to Eigenlayer and deposit them directly there.
And you are done! You are now collecting 🦪 “pearls”, see below, as well as earning Eigenlayer points.
General Airdrop Recommendations
To increase your chances of getting an airdrop, it’s recommended to
- not put all eggs in one basket, in other words, use several projects + wallet instead of only one,
- and start using Dapps like Renzo, Swell, or Etherfi as early as possible,
- use a min. amount of let’s say +0.25 ETH
Potential Airdrops On Celestia
What You Need
- A Keplr Wallet, get it here
- at least 35.1 TIA, the native token of the Celestia chain
Simple Airdrop Guide #5 – Celestia
Celestia, a modular data availability network, scales securely as user numbers grow, enabling effortless blockchain launches for all. This makes it easy for other networks to launch on top of Celestia, and gives stakers of TIA, the native token of the Celestia chain, the opportunity to be rewarded with future airdrops.
One such airdrop, Dymension, was just dropped and I got $2,000 US worth of the DYM tokens.
Here is how to participate
1/ Have at least 35.1 TIA tokens in your Keplr wallet (35 DYM was the min. requirement to be eligible for a recent airdrop)
2/ Head over to Keplr’s staking page
3/ Click on Celestia on the right-hand side
4/ Click on Stake
5/ Stake the amount of TIA you wish (always keep about $1 US worth of TIA in your wallet to pay for gas)
6/ Regularly claim your staking rewards (I do it on the last day of each month)
Conclusion
The above-mentioned airdrops are high-value and low-effort targets!
I am not a hardcore airdrop farmer who uses 10 wallets and creates hundreds of transactions on each network.
Rather, I describe myself as a semi-passive farmer who goes after low-effort & high-value airdrops for which you typically only need to stake a certain amount of coins.
I know I will be missing out on certain drops, but I am okay with that, knowing that I kept things simple & as time-effective as possible.
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FAQ
What were the largest airdrops?
The two largest airdrops to date were from Arbitrum and Jupiter. Arbitrum dropped a total of 12.5% of its total token supply to 600,000 users for a total value of $1.7 Bio US. And Jupiter, a Solana-based exchange that dropped $700 Mio worth of JUP tokens to approx. 1 Mio wallet.
What are the best Ethereum airdrops?
The best Ethereum airdrops to farm change constantly. In 2024, it will be Eigenlayer, Ether.fi, Renzo Protocol, and Swell Network.
What are the best low-effort airdrops?
The best low-effort airdrops are those for which you only need to stake a certain token. Some airdrops require participants to generate lots of transactions and actually use a min. threshold of funds on the chain. This can easily get time- and resource-intensive. My simple airdrop guide will help to find easy-to-manage and low-effort airdrops on both Ethereum and Celestia.
Are crypto airdrops worth it?
Yes, usually they are. Look for low-effort airdrops that only require staking a native coin, e.g. Ethereum, Atom, or Celestia. I recently got $1,900 US worth of DYM tokens from the Dymension Network for simply staking $500 worth of TIA tokens, which I got airdropped because I am an ATOM staker on the Cosmos blockchain. Such airdrop snowballs are surely possible. Check out my simple airdrop guide to find good airdrop opportunities.