Author: kkmoat, Founder of GANx Labs and Chinese Lead for stacks.btc
A Web3 airdrop is fundamentally a core strategy where projects distribute native tokens or NFTs for free to incentivize early user participation, bootstrap liquidity, enable decentralized governance, and rapidly build a community and total value locked (TVL).
Since the "DeFi Summer" initiated by Uniswap in 2020, airdrops have evolved from simple "everyone gets a share" marketing tools into sophisticated behavior incentive systems, anti-Sybil mechanisms, and long-term retention tools.
Current trends for 2026 show a significant cooling of blanket airdrops, with a shift toward threshold-based, quest/task-mining, and hybrid models that prioritize genuine usage over spam.
Phase 1 (2020): The Genesis Era of DeFi Airdrops
Representative Project
- Uniswap
- 1inch
- dYdX
Uniswap must be mentioned because all subsequent airdrops are essentially its derivatives.
September 2020:
Uniswap is distributing 400 UNI to historical users.
Directly change the industry allocation model
Widely regarded as: Web3's first large-scale "wealth redistribution event"
Key Features
1) No sybils
2) No farming
3) No task system
4) No points
It's simple: you use the product → you get paid; it's essentially protocol ownership, not marketing.
Phase 2 (2021): The ENS Era — "Users Own the Protocol"
Representative Project
- ENS
- DYDX
- Gitcoin
The most iconic among them: ENS (2021)
This is a landmark airdrop because it explicitly states for the first time:
The user is not a user.
The user is a shareholder.
ENS distributes governance tokens to users who hold .eth domains for DAO governance.
Why is ENS particularly important?
Because it establishes a political system for Web3, not a financial one.
Three long-term impacts brought by ENS
1) DAO governance became the default
Almost all protocols now have a governance token.
2) "Contribution" becomes the key metric
For example:
- Hold the domain
- Use Protocol
- Participate in governance
Instead of simply manipulating trading volume in DeFi.
3) The community ownership narrative has taken shape
This sentence starts with ENS:
users → owners
Phase 3 (2022–2023): Airdrops become growth hacking tools
This is: the most critical turning point
Airdrops have shifted from rewarding users to acquiring users.
Representative Project
All of these belong to this stage:
- Aptos
- Arbitrum
- Starknet
- Celestia
Aptos (2022)
This is: Standardization of the Testnet Airdrop Mode
Features:
You need to run the testnet.
To test claiming the NFT
To run the node
It distributed tokens worth approximately $430 million to testnet users; I spent just five minutes linking my Google and Discord accounts and received an airdrop of 150 APT tokens worth $1,700.
Key Changes
This is the first time: technical contribution = airdrop, not using a dApp.
Arbitrum (2023)
This is: the largest L2 airdrop
Approximate value: $2 billion USD.
Arbitrum made a key innovation:
Multi-tier scoring
For example:
bridge
transaction
liquidity
DAO voting
This directly leads to airdrops becoming financialized, because you can optimize your wallet address behavior to increase your airdrop weight.
Celestia (2023)
This is: modular blockchain narrative airdrop
Airdrop recipients include:
Cosmos staker
Rollup developer
Ethereum user
And distribute approximately: $730 million USD.
Key Changes
This is the first time: a cross-ecosystem airdrop, not a single-chain airdrop.
Starknet (2024)
This is one of the most controversial airdrops, because it was the first to大规模 filter users based on a balance requirement and introduced multi-dimensional opaque criteria.
For example:
GitHub developer
Ethereum staker
contributor
Additionally: Approximately 50 million STRK were allocated to the early community members program.
Key Changes
This is the first time: identity-based.
No: activity-based.
Phase 4 (2024–2026): The Points Economy Era
This is: the current era.
Core mechanism:
Points system
For example:
- Blur — Earn points by trading NFTs with ETH
- Blast — Earn points by depositing ETH
- EigenLayer — Earn points through restaking
- LayerZero — Long-term interaction history
- Scroll — Earn Points by completing tasks
Now: Everything you see is not an airdrop.
Instead: pre-airdrop incentive system
Key Changes
Airdrops are no longer about completing tasks, but about locking funds—now the key metric is:
- Total Value Locked
- duration
- liquidity
Instead of:
Transaction count
Modern airdrops increasingly rely on points systems to measure user loyalty and deposit duration, but deposits may be stolen, suffer losses due to time delays, and ultimately yield less than the original principal.
Monad: A quintessential example of an "attention-driven airdrop"
The core of Monad is not technology, but attention engineering.
The testnet has hundreds of millions of wallet addresses, but it is not product-driven—it is socially driven. This is a key characteristic of the next generation of airdrops.
Participating in numerous address interactions is not enough; you need to earn recognition from the project team, obtain a Discord role, build influence on social media to acquire a Monad Card, receive nominations, and evolve into a private community rather than just casual engagement.
Why do almost all projects now conduct airdrops?
The answer is simple: airdrops are the cheapest way to acquire users.
- Traditional method: Google Ads
- Cost: $50–$200 per user
- Airdrop method: Send tokens
- Cost: 0 (theoretical)
So airdrops become a growth tool rather than a reward.
The Real Economics of Airdrops (Most People Don’t Realize)
This is the most important part: many airdrop projects experience a price surge first, followed by large-scale selling.
For example:
- ENS
- dYdX
- STRK
Prices surged rapidly driven by market enthusiasm, but subsequently pulled back significantly due to selling pressure.
This is called: Airdrop Dump Cycle
Process:
1) Airdrop
2) Price spike
3) Dump (plunge)
4) Stabilization
This is something nearly all airdrop projects go through, so if you have an airdrop, you need to think carefully about when to sell—rather than simply acting on FOMO or FUD.
The future of airdrops: 5 trends that form my core assessment.
1) The chain-level airdrop has ended.
For example:
Arbitrum
Starknet
zkSync
Scroll
Most have already been distributed; in the future, only ecosystem airdrops will be issued.
For example:
Lending
Restaking
NFT infrastructure
So I believe future opportunities will primarily come from ecosystem protocols rather than the chains themselves.
2) Airdrops are becoming financial products
For example:
staking
restaking
Liquidity mining
Essentially: Yield (lending), not reward.
3) The funding threshold will continue to rise.
Previously $0, now $1000+ just to get started, and potentially $10,000+ in the future as Sybil costs rise.
4) AI will be involved in airdrop distribution
Many things have already happened, such as automated chat and automated trading, so in the future, project teams may use:
on-chain reputation
behavioral pattern (user behavior)
identity graph
These will depend on whether you are eligible to claim the airdrop, not just on connecting via a single method.
5) Airdrops are becoming a "war for attention"
It’s not about technological competition, but about who can attract users.
The most值得关注的空投类型 for 2026
Tier 1 (most likely to generate large-scale airdrops) examples include:
Monad
Eclipse
Berachain
Movement
Tier 2 (Medium Airdrop)
restaking
Lending
derivatives
Tier 3 (Small but Frequent)
DEX
NFT infrastructure
social
Final summary (key points)
If what I want to summarize is,
1) 2020: Airdrops were rewards
2) 2021: Airdrops are user rights
3) 2022: Airdrops drive growth
4) 2023: Airdrops are trading
4) 2024-2025: Airdrops are finance
5) 2026: Airdrops are attention
What needs to be done is
1# Give up meaningless testnet farming
2# Participate in the project team's testnet node or technical contributions
3# Participate in the project team's clearly defined airdrop task system
4# System design that clearly awards Points for staking, trading, and other activities
#5 Earn the Community Contributor role by being active in the Discord community
6# Consistently use the product and actively engage, embracing a long-term perspective
#7 Build on-chain identity while maintaining Web2 identity activity
Since the genesis event of Uniswap in 2020, Web3 airdrops have evolved from simple “use-to-earn” models into sophisticated systems of behavioral incentives, identity verification, and attention economies. From ENS explicitly declaring users as protocol shareholders, to projects like Aptos and Arbitrum optimizing airdrop weights through multidimensional scoring, to today’s Points systems and attention-driven designs, the essence of airdrops is no longer merely token distribution—but a tool for fostering long-term engagement, community building, and value alignment.
For long-term participants and newcomers, airdrops still offer significant opportunities—but strategies must evolve: move beyond simply farming points, actively engage with testnets and node contributions, complete task systems, stake and interact consistently, and build influence within the community. By doing so, you won’t just increase your chances of receiving high-quality airdrops—you’ll become a true part of the protocol’s ecosystem.
Although blanket airdrops have significantly cooled down, threshold-based, task-mining, and hybrid models are emerging, emphasizing genuine usage and long-term value. This means that, when executed properly with a long-term strategy, airdrops remain a viable way to acquire early-stage equity and participate in innovative ecosystems. The future belongs to those who understand on-chain identity, value contribution, and the attention economy—the opportunities in the airdrop space have never truly disappeared.
In short, airdrops have evolved from rewards into a core tool for Web3 user acquisition, governance, and community building—spanning user rights, growth, trading, finance, and attention—where the key capabilities of the future lie in identity, contribution, attention, and long-term participation.