Have you ever participated in a crypto airdrop and found yourself “non eleggibile” even though you farmed the project and invested capital?
Unfortunately, there are always those who remain outside the winners’ circle and must make way for more prepared users with a strategy behind them.
In this article, we look at the recommended actions to improve one’s on-chain habits and secure the next airdrop rewards.
On-chain footprints and eligibility for crypto airdrops: how to behave?
Those who are dealing with the first farming activities will certainly have tested the difficulty in being eligible with their own address for crypto airdrops.
Often, in fact, cryptographic projects adopt criteria that are particularly selective and tend to exclude a wide range of users from receiving the rewards.
With the phenomenon of airdrop expanding, it is clear that the rewards must be limited to an increasingly smaller number of people.
It therefore arises spontaneously to wonder how to behave and what actions to take to have the highest probability of being eligible for the distribution of the next cryptocurrencies.
In this sense, it is essential to improve one’s on-chain habits and avoid potential sybil contagion sybil among multiple addresses.
Sorry airdrop hunters, but today we are releasing our sybil detection tool. We score the probability of a user being a sybil across seven chains.
An overview of our methodology, motivation for building and some insights in a detailed 
pic.twitter.com/lZwBw4IYmO
— Artemis (@artemis__xyz) March 7, 2024
First of all, it is advisable to always have a history of activity on the blockchains of Ethereum and Solana, where the major airdrops usually occur.
Leave a balance of at least 0.05 ETH and 1 SOL and execute at least 5-10 operations on different smart contracts in different months of the year.
This will guarantee you a better initial footprint than that of many other users who farm airdrops without having a history on the main chains.
Another way to elevate your address is to buy an ENS domain and interact with on-chain identity protocols like OxScore and Trusta Labs.
Over time, in fact, there will be more and more bots in the market, and it will be very important to know how to distinguish oneself from them.
To avoid being identified as sybil, it is also essential to avoid transferring funds between multiple addresses with which you are farming airdrop. Each address must have its own funds necessary to cover all activities, under penalty of total exclusion from any prize!
Do not forget to use at least once a multisignature wallet like Safe and to take part in governance decisions on as many protocols as possible.
How to successfully participate in crypto airdrops
Beyond the general precautions that should be considered by all farmatori of crypto airdrop, there are other topics to be addressed.
In a blockchain world so besieged by users seeking easy profits, it is important to stand out from the crowd and do better than the others.
Often in tools like Dune.Analytics, we find metrics that help classify the participants of a specific airdrop based on various data.
Liquidity invested, number of transactions executed, and number of protocols are just some of the factors that lead to the eligibility of a crypto airdrop.
Emerging projects have been reorganizing these metrics lately around points, to which the reward in tokens is given at the end of the incentive campaign.
By following this information, it is possible to try to improve one’s activity until reaching the upper part of the ranking.
It is generally recommended in each airdrop to be at least part of the top 10% of users, so as to receive the most substantial rewards.
Especially when the eligibility criterion involves the deposit of liquidity, it is at least simple to surpass the small farmers who operate with a few tens of dollars.
To give an example, during the airdrop of ZKsync the following address was in the top 2% of addresses for on-chain activity and collected as much as 14,519 ZK.
While other newbies were crying about being “non eleggibili” due to a lack of consistent activity, the true farmers earned 5000+ dollars.
How to choose a project and which factors to focus on
Obviously, the activity and the commitment of funds for crypto airdrop activities must be correlated to the potential reward.
Sometimes it happens that the cost to farm a project exceeds the reward in tokens obtained, highlighting a failing strategy.
A case in point is the recent Scroll airdrop, where many users complained about receiving so few SCR that they were unable to cover the gas fees.
Just got done claiming on my 50+ wallets that had been farming Scroll for over a year
$118.49 $SCR airdrop pic.twitter.com/O8nv1bD9pq
— Blur (@BlurCrypto) October 22, 2024
In the final result, the choice of the project is central: the wrong airdrop will make you lose money in any condition, even if you are doing things correctly.
It is inadvisable first of all to adhere to projects lacking liquidity to be able to commit in a token and in the incentive to the community.
At the same time, it seems detrimental to focus solely on those teams that have received VC funding. Sometimes it is precisely these that offer the worst performance, given the privileged position of the large investors.
KROMA, after several delays, finally launched at a 60M FDV
the airdrop people spent months farming, is worth peanuts
nobody is buying VC bag anymore and capital has to go somewhere
this is the memecoin supercycle pic.twitter.com/PCzq7N8T1G
— atareh (@atareh) October 30, 2024
Avoid also those super-farmed projects where there are millions of addresses that want to try to get a slice of the airdrop.
As a guideline to get an idea of the potential rewards, you can divide the number of funds committed to the campaign by the number of users participating in it.
If the value is in the range of tens of dollars, then it’s probably better to skip and bet on better horses.
On Grass for example, although it was free, there were never expectations of big gains given the crowding at the entrance.
had Grass installed since last christmas
got 690K points since
airdrop checker: abnormal activity so we're rugging you
ffs pic.twitter.com/msX43DL3yY
— Chris (@oyacaro) October 28, 2024
Most of the time, the best airdrop is the one you are participating in involuntarily, without spending money unnecessarily.
Try as many interactions as possible in the web3 world, discarding the most overrated airdrops and choosing the less popular ones.
Sometimes you make transactions in a specific network or protocol even without aiming for a reward. Often this is the direct result of your persistence.
Discipline, curiosity, and resourcefulness are the key words in the world of crypto airdrops.
