On December 25, 2021, SOS went viral overnight. Here’s why: OpenDAO, an NFT community, offered airdrops to all users who traded on OpenSea, and the token price surged tenfold in just 24 hours. Users eligible to receive the airdrop called it one of the best Christmas gifts they ever received.

At the end of 2021, another organization called Gas DAO followed suit and airdropped GAS to all users who spent over $1,559 gas fee on Ethereum. Interestingly, these two coveted airdrop programs were squeezed within just one week at the end of 2021. Today, let’s go through the popular airdrop programs in 2021.

I. SOS

Recently, SOS has become one of the hottest cryptos. In the crypto community, instead of Christmas, more people were talking about SOS a few days ago. The token was listed on several exchanges in less than 24 hours since its launch. Despite its immense success on the surface, SOS remains a “shitcoin”. It is a classic MEME coin, with no practical use. However, there is news that the SOS community is discussing whether an NFT marketplace should be launched

Let’s check out how the supply of SOS (100 trillion in total) is distributed: 50% is airdropped to OpenSea users, 20% distributed as staking rewards, 20% used for the management and maintenance of OpenDAO, and the last 10% distributed as rewards for yield farming. OpenSea further specified the important use of the 20% token supply reserved for management and maintenance:

1. Compensate fraud victims on OpenSea (subject to official verification);

2. Support original NFT works by emerging artists;

3. Empower the development of the NFT community and the protection of NFT artworks;

4. Developer rewards for coordination efforts within the ecosystem.

The number of SOS-holding addresses has now exceeded 210,000. However, according to data from the Etherscan Explorer, after SOS went viral in the crypto community on December 25, its popularity continued to decline in the following days. What this means is that although the token has attracted a lot of attention, once users cool off, it will only be a short-lived success if there is no actual value behind it. Fortunately, OpenDAO is actively exploring the future development of SOS.

II. GAS

GAS (not to be mistaken with gas fee), another trending token over the recent period, is a governance token issued by the decentralized organization Gas DAO. It is airdropping 55% of its total supply to eligible users on the Ethereum mainnet. Gas DAO aims to become the spokesperson of Ethereum users through on-chain and off-chain governance. To put it bluntly, it plans to allow all its members to express their views through Gas DAO and then state the members’ position via EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals).

Here is how GAS is distributed:

1. 55% airdropped to users who paid over $1,559 gas fee on Ethereum;

2. 30% stored in the vault of GAS DAO;

3. 15% distributed to the core contributors of Gas DAO.

As of December 30, 2021, over 57,000 addresses have received airdrops from Gas DAO, while more than 90% of the eligible addresses have not yet claimed the airdrop. Ethereum is notorious for its expensive gas fees, and the Gas DAO airdrops are also intended as a reward for users who paid a large number of gas fees. We can tell that Gas DAO has got the right goals, but its official website only stated the initial roadmap of the token. In addition to the distribution plan, Gas DAO has not released a timetable for the next move.

III. ENS

The crypto community is never short of windfalls. ENS (Ethereum Domain Name System), a veteran project founded many years ago, finally announced the issuance and the airdrop of its token ENS on November 2, which immediately led to heated discussions in all crypto communities. The ENS airdrop brought a coveted windfall to many crypto users.

On November 9, 2021, after users started to collect the airdrop, ENS soon started trading on the decentralized exchange Uniswap, with its price surging to $86. An early builder of Ethereum’s Chinese community (allegedly a college student) received 49,000 ENS from the airdrop. Assuming that each is worth $80, the user made $3.94 million during the airdrop. This get-rich-quick legend is also widely discussed in crypto communities.

With a total supply of 100 million, ENS is distributed as follows:

1. 25% to be airdropped to addresses that have registered ENS domain names;

2. 25% distributed to community members who have contributed to ENS in the past five years, including administrators at the Discord community.

3. 50% reserved for ENS’s DAO.

The ENS trend has ended for a long time, which is not surprising because the popularity brought by the get-rich-quick opportunities of airdrop often soon dissipates. As the excitement cools down, the market’s test for ENS, a blockchain application powered by a value-based token, has just begun.

IV. DappRadar

At long last, DappRadar, a Dapp data tracking platform, officially announced the issuance of its token RADRA on December 15, 2021, with a total supply of 10 billion. Additionally, 1 billion RADRA will be airdropped to eligible users in the past six months. These users could receive 8,697 or 5,798 RADAR. Based on the peak price ($0.04) on the day of its issuance, users could get at least $231 of RADAR.

At the same time, the project team has also been perfecting the application scenarios of the token. RADAR holders can access content and personalized functions in advance through governance, staking, and DappRadar PRO. Moreover, users holding more than 100,000 RADAR can also submit and release proposals on Snapshot, thus truly binding the interests of holders with the future of DappRadar.

V. SWASH

Swash, an ecosystem of blockchain services, announced an airdrop program of 300,000 SWASH. The first 10,000 users who completed the required operations can receive the SWASH rewards.

According to Swash, users must go through the following steps in order to qualify for the airdrop:

1. Install Swash app on your desktop and keep it on for at least 30 days;

2. Follow Swash on Twitter; retweet the airdrop tweet with one sentence on what you like about Swash and tag two friends;

3. Sign up to the Swash mailing list; join the community on Telegram; and leave a review for the Swash app.

Moreover, the Swash team will unlock the supply of SWASH in different stages. The initial circulating supply stands at 54 million, which accounts for only 5.4% of the total supply.

VI. DYDX

Following the feast of DeFi airdrop started by SushiSwap and Uniswap, dYdX, another decentralized exchange, also announced the launch of its governance token DYDX in August 2021 and offered airdrops to addresses previously active on the exchange. 36,000 users would be eligible for the airdrop, and the criteria are quite friendly. All dYdX users who deposited funds would qualify for the airdrop of 310.75 tokens. Based on the price of $11.3 on the issuing date, these users would be able to get $3,500. Moreover, users with a trading volume of over $1 would be eligible for an airdrop of 1,163.51 DYDX. To many crypto users, such an incredible airdrop program is a great opportunity to get rich.

According to the exchange, 50% of the total supply (1 billion) will be distributed to community users, 27.7% to investors, and the rest to the founding team and consultants. After five years, to ensure that the community will have sufficient resources to keep promoting the development of the protocol, the annual inflation rate of DYDX will be kept within 2%.

However, the dYdX team has also been struggling to meet one challenge — Plenty of cheaters have been drawn to the DYDX airdrop. These speculators often have hundreds of accounts to drive up their interaction records. As soon as they got the airdrop, these accounts will no longer remain active, which runs counter to the original intention of the project team. As the game of airdrops becomes more sophisticated, the project team’s competence will be tested as they try to prevent the cheaters from disrupting their airdrop program. 

As we enter 2022, there will also be many exciting airdrop programs, such as MateMask, DAS, Paraswap, etc. Many past experiences have shown that as long as you work hard enough to study different crypto projects, in addition to the revenue from investment and speculation, project airdrops may also bring you profits much beyond your expectation.