The evolution of airdrops in the cryptocurrency circle: the "cat and mouse game" between project parties and "wool parties"

The Arbitrum Foundation officially announced the airdrop information. Although many wool parties died in Arbitrum's "very rolling" airdrop rules, it cannot be denied that this is another massive wealth-making movement in the cryptocurrency circle. The legendary stories of "swiping thousands of accounts", "taking hundreds of thousands of tokens" and "freedom overnight" have been widely circulated again because of this airdrop.

A "cat and mouse game"

Recently, the airdrop movement in the cryptocurrency circle has set off a wave of enthusiasm again. Some potential projects, such as zkSync and StarkNet, have been enthusiastically sought after by the market. The number of daily active users has increased by more than 10 times. Professional airdrop studios have also begun to carry out "leading" and training courses for zkSync airdrops. Many netizens even joked that the recent zkSync Era interaction has been rolled up to "grandpas and aunts bringing their pensions into the market."

But both the project parties and wool parties are constantly upgrading their offensive and defensive means in this cat and mouse game, and gradually evolved into a weird relationship of mutual confrontation but mutual dependence.

Each party tries to gain more benefits and advantages, but they are interdependent, because the project party needs participants, and participants also need the rewards and benefits provided by the project party. And this weird relationship has gradually become part of the airdrop ecosystem.

A brief history of the evolution of airdrops

Airdrop refers to the act of sending free crypto tokens to a specific digital wallet address in the blockchain field. In other words, airdrop is an act of giving crypto assets to users by the project party.

Therefore, crypto airdrop is a marketing strategy aimed at promoting new projects and their crypto tokens. Users can receive tokens for free, but sometimes they need to complete specific tasks. Participating in crypto airdrops can gain economic benefits, and mature Web3 projects can also use this strategy to reward loyal community members and improve token distribution.

Like the Internet industry, as the traffic dividend gradually disappears, the deepening of airdrop involution and the upgrading of anti-witch means by the project party will make it difficult for the studio-style "hair-pulling" to continue. As an emerging industry, there are still many unknowns in the future of Web3. Only those projects that are truly valuable and can provide practical help to users can continue to develop in this field.