In this article, we look at the latest airdrop updates in the crypto world, with a focus on the Optimism and Swell projects.
The layer-2 of Ethereum has just announced round #5 of its community rewards campaign, giving away a whopping 16 million dollars.
The restaking protocol, on the other hand, has released the checker for the airdrop of its upcoming governance token, which will be launched in TGE shortly.
Check immediately if you are eligible for these two distributions and be ready for the next opportunities.
Optimism announces round #5 of its crypto airdrop OP
Optimism, known as layer-2 optimistic rollup of Ethereum, recently revealed the start of the awards for phase #5 of its crypto airdrop campaign.
The project rewards with 10.3 million token OP, valued at approximately 15 million dollars, a total of 54,723 different addresses that have contributed to the growth of the Superchain.
Users who interacted on the OP Mainnet chains, Base, Zora, Mode, Metal, Fraxtal, Cyber, Mint, Swan, Redstone, Lisk, Derive, BOB, Xterio, Polynomial, Race, and Orderly between March 15 and September 15 can claim part of the loot.
Specifically, the only criterion for eligibility present is that of having interacted with at least 20 different contracts, with a contract-transaction ratio greater than or equal to 10%.
For example, you are eligible for the crypto airdrop if you have 25 different contracts and 100 transactions, with a ratio of 25%.
You can check if you are among the lucky users by going through this link and connecting your wallet to the platform. The claim is already open.
Use the Superchain, and reap the benefits
Today, @Optimism unveils Airdrop #5:
Onchain together, benefit together.
10M+ OP has been allocated to 54k+ unique addresses.
As of today, roughly 550M OP remains for future airdrops. pic.twitter.com/TCS1oSXKBs
— Optimism (@Optimism) October 9, 2024
Among the over 54,000 addresses that have been labeled by Optimism as benefiting from the airdrop, there are also some boosts for specific categories.
Active delegators, frequent users, explorers of the Superchain, Quester, Superfest participants, and fans of SUNNY’s have received an extra reward.
Consider that, enjoying all possible attributes, one could achieve a reward multiplied by as much as 27.5 times.
The criterion of the active delegator was probably the simplest to comply with since 100 OP in stake for 90 days were enough to be eligible.
Another 550 million OP tokens to be distributed in the upcoming Optimism airdrops
If you missed round #5 of the crypto airdrop from Optimism, don’t worry.
The project has distributed to the community up to today a total of 250 million OP tokens, but still reserves another 550 million OP for future airdrops.
It is a sum equal to 869 million dollars according to the cryptocurrency prices at the time of writing.
There are therefore still many opportunities to capture a share of the reward by performing simple cryptographic actions. How to become eligible?
The first thing is to be active on the OP Mainnet chain by occasionally performing some operations and interacting with various different contracts.
Then, stake at least 100 OP (the more you stake, the better) and delegate your voting power during the governance phase.
Imagine fade Optimism
→ 250M $OP distributed among 5 airdrops
→ 550M $OP available for future airdrops
Make sure to:
Delegate your $OP
https://t.co/KiRjhK4As4
Interact with Optimism Ecosystem https://t.co/lJm6MhHKnH
Be active on Network supporting Superchain… pic.twitter.com/xzpmdDXKkD
— $ASED 
(@asedd72) October 11, 2024
There are then hundreds of possible interaction techniques on Optimism, ranging from liquidity providing activity in DeFi to the buying and selling of NFTs.
We cannot know in advance what the next eligibility criteria for future Optimism airdrops will be, but we can nevertheless cover as many sectors as possible.
It is appropriate in this sense to get in touch with other chains of the Superchain beyond OP Mainnet, and try at least 10/15 different dapps within the ecosystem.
Ensure you generate at least 5,000/10,000 dollars in volume on DEX monthly, trade at least 4-5 NFTs, and provide liquidity of no less than 1,000 dollars.
Very important also to participate in all the Optimism campaigns, even where there is no explicit promise of an airdrop reward.
Do not forget to get in touch with all the new products led by the Superchain, such as the next layer-2 chain of Uniswap.
Welcome @unichain to the Superchain!@unichain is a DeFi-native Ethereum L2, purposefully built by @uniswap.
Together, we’ll shape the future of the Superchain and scale Ethereum. pic.twitter.com/cdYBC3w1Dl
— Optimism (@Optimism) October 10, 2024
Swell releases airdrop checker: TGE expected soon
Also Swell, a liquid restaking protocol operating on Ethereum, is getting ready to reward the community with its own crypto airdrop.
A few days ago, the project published the checker for the distribution of the future SWELL token, which will be offered as a reward to the stakers of the platform.
All those who have accumulated “white pearls” by restaking on Swell can now check the amount of tokens earned. This is the official link.
The claim is not yet active, but it will be opened in conjunction with the TGE of the token or shortly before. We expect it to be launched by the end of October.
There are no vesting constraints, except for the top 0.3% of White Pearl holders who control the majority of airdrop points.
A total of 850,000,000 SWELL have been reserved for the airdrop campaign, equal to 8.5% of the total token supply.
The resource will be used as gas for Swell’s layer-2 and as a vote for the community governance proposals.
According to the premarket quotes on platforms like Bitget, Kucoin, or Bybit, we can observe how the estimated value of SWELL is 0.04 dollars.
This means that the project will be launched with a FDV of 400 million dollars, while the airdrop rewards amount to 34 million dollars.
This is a relatively low value if we consider that the protocol boasts a TVL of 1.32 billion dollars.
Several airdrop farmers have indeed publicly complained about the disappointing distribution, which will likely barely cover the gas costs of the operations.
Many users have deposited large amounts of ETH on the protocol for several months, and now they receive trivial airdrop shares.
For example, the user “Picolas_Caged” said they locked over 5 ETH in stake for 11 months on Swell, earning less than 200 dollars as profit: if they had staked on Lido, they would have earned a profit of over 500 dollars, using a more secure and tested application compared to the first one.
Sometimes you bet on the wrong horse and it loses.$SWELL has been one of those airdrops that's been extremely disappointing.
I've had 3 $ETH parked in $SWELL for the LRT + $EIGEN airdrops for 11 months. 
I've received very low $EIGEN rewards and today I find out I'm… pic.twitter.com/Hv3Q8W7GDs
— Picolas Cage (@Picolas_Caged) October 10, 2024
