Is crypto airdrop really unwelcome to the Fleece party?

Random Thoughts: The Evolution of airdrops

@0xTodd is a partner at Nothing Research

If you are the operations manager of a company and the company decides to spend $500,000 on operations, you may have 5 meetings, 50 phone calls, and 500 hours of busy work to do a great job.

But in the Crypto world, projects decide to put up a quarter or even a fifth of their "equity", which can be worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, but many of these decisions seem to have been made in the head.

To be honest, many projects can be somewhat arbitrary and capricious with such a big decision. However, these small capricious inside, in fact, hidden some opportunities. The more capricious the project side, the higher the opportunity ceiling.

A friend Oar on Twitter also mentioned this today, which got me thinking. From Uni to today, I have airdropped dozens of projects, big and small, and I always think it is necessary to analyze the whole, so I came up with this random thought.    

Before we get started, let's talk about one premise: what was the purpose of the airdrop?

The answer is one word: attention.

In the Crypto industry has been immersed in people, all know Crypto this circle is the most important thing --attention.

The consensus mechanism is attention; Meme culture is attention; Why other marketplaces can't overtake Opensea right now because Opensea has the most attention right now; Why Would Musk buy Twitter? Because Twitter is the easiest platform to get attention.

The purpose of the airdrop is the same.

Many of you may have wondered before - why would a project give away tens of millions of dollars in free chips? It's simple. To maximize attention. As long as the most exaggerated gift, in order to grab the most eyeballs in the competitive world of Crypto.

The migration of Crypto Native guys from app to app is relentless. This has been argued over and over again, and is due to the different architecture of the address-dapp versus account-app architectures. Therefore, the only way for an app to retain these users is to constantly gain attention. Once you get attention, you get everything.

The airdrop was to:

1.  Get the attention of your loyal users.

It's the easiest thing to spread when users give a lot of support at the start of a project and double their support as it grows:

2.  Get the attention of your competitors' users.

This applies not only to Defi, but to almost any human business. I undercut the competition by giving you a few dollars to use my product and experience my beauty.

So let's break it down one by one.

In this round, it was $UNI that ushered in the era of airdrops.

Uniswap's airdrop was simple and crude. One day an announcement went out quietly that anyone who used Uniswap's address by a certain date would be rewarded with 400 coins, plus extra if you did LP.

At the time, Uniswap was basically an early adopter of DeFi.

Uni started at level 2 with $2- $3. Everyone joked that it was like getting an iPhone. And these DeFi early players, even if the opening sold, is comfortable to get this "iPhone".

Such stories, the spread of the power is unprecedented, which is just to open the age of great navigation, countless people from CEX to the chain, opened the hottest summer DeFi.

At that time, I also took my 400 coins with the handling fee of 1000 Gwei, and kept a small part until today. I am very clever. I have saved these Uni in Compoud to avoid taking it out and increase the weight of the account.

Of course, the algorithm is crude and egalitarian -- 400 for everyone. Egalitarianism, even if you haven't studied algorithms, can see its flaws. Egalitarianism is the least efficient for most things in the world, like the x Society.

空投的第二次进化，当属于 Badger 和 1inch。Badger 是做 BTC 机枪池的，当时给 WBTC RenBTC 等潜在用户全部发放了空投；而 1inch 则用了升级版的 Uni 规则，交互过就给，不过金额太小，或者只用过 1 次会被 ban。

The two airdrops were also iPhone-level, and each project sent tens of millions of dollars of airdrops, and both gained corresponding transmission power. Badger I got hold so far, but unfortunately 1inch missed, and missed twice in a row.

But do they really think about it? Probably not. Badger's plan, the authorities may have thought about it for an hour or two, the one inch plan... I think the project team thought about it for about 10 minutes, quite casually.

But what explains why they still work so well? Because the attention was so full that it exploded. In the middle of the bull market, thousands of people came in every day, even while lying down, scrambling to learn about DeFi.

I didn't get a 1inch, but the 1inch secondary airdrop was commendable.

If airdrop has a business school, be sure to add this case to the classic teaching. It cleverly engineered a wave of anti-wool measures.

After the first airdrop of an inch, I think most of the fleeces never had another inch. However, who can bear 3 months later, 1Inch to traders again airdrop, this time because of wool left, but accurate to many real users.

(When it comes to brushing wool, it's Indian brother)

The third evolution of airdrop is actually DYDX

To be honest, after 1inch education, twice, a lot of people are starting to wake up. Especially a lot of wool skills full of friends, but also smell a business opportunity.

DYDX, as a popular option for air drops, was naturally targeted by many wool brothers.

But DYDX came up with a really cool thing called retroactive airdrops, which means it's not enough that you're qualified, you have to come here and continue to trade, and unlock these airdrops by continuing to trade.

DYDX got a lot in this airdrop, and I also insisted on digging the first and second phase mines. Although my secondary trading record is a dime a dozen, the DYDX mine is still pretty good.

It was this opportunity that enabled me, as a non-trading user, to move all my positions in CEX onto the chain for the first time, and to become a user of ZK+ order book DEX, because the DYDX experience was really amazing.

In return, the DYDX team made a fortune through several rounds of brush trading. Sure enough, when the project has this diamond, through air drop, can quickly harvest a real large number of live orders of porcelain.

The fourth evolution of airdrop I think is $Para. Frankly speaking, Paraswap was once considered the number one competitor of 1inch. Those who ambush Para and issue tokens can queue up from Shanghai to Suzhou. However, after the official declaration of Para, there was a lot of controversy in the community. Let this 1inch the strongest competition, failed to get the exchange center on the FOMO token opportunity.

Obviously, the Para airdrop plan was not decided in 10 minutes, but it is clear that its planners did not think deeply about its consequences. First of all, it has been "toying" with everyone for a long time, hinting at airdrops, with the implication that everyone should use them. But the resulting airdrop rules were so strict that not only did a lot of fleeces get kicked out, but a lot of real users were accidentally injured and received nothing, leading to a huge community outcry.

Seeing the community like this, the exchange center did not give it Listing, in fact, it is hardly a success.

And then $ENS.

ENS is actually a pretty rough algorithm, but it looks pretty good, thanks to the precision delivery.

Users with ENS domain name, user profile is very good, many are not poor money owners. When you think about it, there really isn't much use for the ENS domain besides being cool, and it costs at least $100 gas (more than the domain itself in many cases).

But where is the roughness? It has a 25% token for all early contributors. This 25 percent, it's like a mind-set -- the project came out of lunch one day and thought, how much? A quarter. With such a large amount of money involved, they are not willing to calculate, deduce, and make a little joke, which is really a bit arbitrary.

Of course, the defects do not outweigh the drawbacks. The airdrop to ENS domain name users has received a lot of praise from those degen people on the chain, which also indirectly promoted $ENS to be tokens on Fomo by trading centers, and then take the wind of Web3. In fact, it is the top scarce resource of the Crypto circle to earn enough "attention".

Finally, OPT.

The OP airdrop algorithm, at least compared to earlier airdrops, is the most accurate one, balancing wool with real users.

Do air drops welcome wool at all? Opinions differ.

The Fleece party put a lot of thought into it and objectively brought some volume to the agreement. A lot of people try to use OP, just want to get a drop, this is thanks to the wool brother repeated education.

To be fair, the rates on the OP are pretty cheap, especially after the recent upgrade, and the experience is still silky smooth. Many users, even if the original purpose is wool, but as long as the first step. May actually translate into future OP users.

On the other hand, real users, many of whom are old guns and Degen, are actually the sole steerers of the current attention-deficit phase. If there is not enough to please these people, then the overall volume of sound is difficult to expand.

OP deserves credit for dropping a few small designs, like this one:

Optimism 活跃用户：在四个不同的自然周内与 Optimism 上的 Dapps 进行了至少 1 次交易，这部分仅会选择前 20% 的符合条件的「Optimism 用户」。

Trade should have 4 weeks, and select the first 20%, I am afraid that real users are difficult to be accidentally injured. At the same time, a small number of fleece smart people can get it, which is a good balance.

Another example is the directed airdrop to the old guns on the chain:

Have voted at least 5 times for various protocols, or gitCoin has donated money to ETH, or have oversubscribed. Good selection of user profiles (although I would have given an extra round to Punk, Bayc, Azuki, and other top dozens of NFT holders who are also potential high net worth users).

Another example is the operation against a rival:

For all users who have been to other L1 and L2 from ETH, the first 60% will also be airdropped. This protects real users and smart fleecers from getting rid of ordinary wool that is just plain, simple to pull.

And even more interesting, why is it centripetal? It sets six conditions, and if some accounts meet 4/5/6 conditions at the same time, it will be extra hard to send more. These conditions are exactly what real users can easily achieve, whereas wool generally only meets 1-2, but there are still consolation prizes.

This is particularly like a set effect in the game. The more components you collect, the more airdrops you get.

Different people have different perspectives on this matter. In terms of OP, the fleece party got an average of 200-300 with 100 numbers each; As a real user, I have 1 number, met the 4 conditions, and got the suit effect. I got 6800+, which is equal to more than 10 numbers. Both sides are psychologically balanced.

This wave is actually very enough to earn attention, there are no complaints in the community at present, it seems that the listing behind is more stable, so it is also suggested that income airdrop textbooks for future generations reference.

Of course, the article is 3, 000 words long, and the reason to look back is to look forward to tomorrow.

L2 track competition is very fierce, OP launch, Arb launch market and investors will also push it.

Now that the partner has been airdropped, the Arb can only plan a bigger, more complex one. So if you miss the OP, don't miss the Arb.

Of course, I suggest that if you're not an air hunter, it's better to concentrate on one. But I can't guarantee this, there is no guarantee that the official Arb and the official OP will see eye to eye.

What are the conditions that need to be met?

You're guessing:

Do you meet all the requirements of OP (5/6, 6/6)?

Will Arb bridge be used?

Do you buy one or two of the treasureDAO NFT on Arb?

Will all third party Bridges be built? (For example, BoringDAO, which we invested in before, also told me recently that they jointly conducted cross-chain bridge activities with Arb, as well as Hop Protocol)

Then is DeFi, the top TVL on Arb considering interaction? Examples include Sushi Uni Curve and AAVE.

You are welcome to add.

---- split line ----

Of course, I still hope that you can experience these L2, especially those who haven't.

I think the current situation of ETH2.0 will coexist with L2 for a long time. ETH2.0 offers low-power PoS and quick validation, uses Dunksharding for simple sharding, and still relies on roll-up for capacity expansion, but a series of updates will make roll-up even better.

So get familiar with OP, Arb, Metis and ZK in advance, because they could really be the future of ETH.

Ok, that's all for this issue. Welcome to clap bricks! Mirror doesn't support comments, but I reply to almost anything I can on Twitter!

Wish everyone a happy trip to L2 in advance, and try to bring some local specialties back with you!

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