If you are in the crypto world you surely know that many protocols have the nice habit of airdrops for early adopters

If you are in the crypto world you surely know that many protocols have the nice habit of airdrops for early adopters. The first airdrop in history was that of Uniswap (September 2020) which airdropped a minimum of 400 Uni to all users who had used its AMM, when the latter was without tokens. Each token was worth about $4 so it was a "gift" of a minimum of $1600. A few months later, in the middle of the Bull Market, Uni reached over $40. After Uniswap, many protocols have airdropped tokens: 1INCH (2 times), DyDx, Forth (if you received it and use PUBLISH0X you know who you have to thank!), Optimism, Paraswap, Ethereum Name Service, EVMos, Radar, Across Bridge, Ape, Aptos, etc This pictured below is perhaps the biggest airdrop I've taken: 5200 PSP (Paraswap) sold for almost 2 ETH in November 2021!

HOW TO TAKE AIRDROP

The best method is to interact with protocols without tokens. If in the past it was enough to make 1 transaction, know that today it is no longer enough. The concept of airdrops has led many "hunters" to do what they refer to as "Sybil Attacks". These are real spam attacks with bots and multi-accounts. People who create multiple addresses, do a few transactions, and then disappear. This doesn't work anymore (you might get lucky but usually you need something else).

1) Locate the protocol/chain without token (e.g. if you need to trade Uniswap on Optimism chain, you might think about doing it on Rubicon which is tokenless. If you have to use a bridge, maybe you can use one that doesn't have the token)

2) Use the platform or chain normally. If you are on a yield farming platform, deposit LP and claim when necessary. If you are using an AMM (dex) avoid swaps stable for stable or ETH for wETH (it is precisely the airdrop hunter behavior that you should avoid. An airdrop hunter who performs these operations usually swaps stable for stable or token for its wrapped because not really interested in doing these things!)

3) Try to be an active user. A real user performs some operation at least once every 2 weeks. For example a claim or a swap on a dex. If you swap and then don't use the chain/dapp for 1 year, it's clear that you're an airdrop hunter: you won't receive anything!)

4) Liquidity is important. You don't have to be a whale, however going to Arbitrum or using LayerZero with $10 makes you very suspicious. Even if you are an active user. If you do swaps of $10 or similar, they may be truncated because they are considered too small trades (at which point even if you have done 50 swaps, they are worth 0). There may also be exceptions. Uniswap rewarded users who swapped even a few dollars

5) Avoid spamming. Many people when trying to take an airdrop either take just 1 trade and then disappear or they take several trades back to back and then disappear. If you trade USDC/DAI, then DAI/USDT, USDT/ETH, ETH/wETH, wETH/USDC has no meaning. Especially if you do all these operations in 10 minutes. You need to be patient. Use the chain normally. Spread the trades over weeks, even months. No FOMO

6) You must leave some gas on the wallet. If you are on Ethereum, you must consider leaving at least $30 in your wallet. If you're using Polygon, 1 Matic is fine too. At least $20 BNB on BSC. And so on. Some protocols, through on-chain analysis, also check the balance of the wallet!

7) The new frontier of airdrops could be that of social pages. It is good practice to follow the Twitter pages and enter the Discord server. Telegram is usually not needed. Many protocols (for example Optimism) when choosing the eligibility criteria also considered users who followed their page on Twitter or were on their Discord server. In this regard, you should pay attention to being an active user. It's not enough to follow the Twitter page: a few likes, retweets and comments are essential. In Discord servers total a good number of messages and come back to write from time to time (in public channels, avoid "gm" or "gn" otherwise you will be banned!). You remember that also to obtain the whitelist of important NFT projects it is essential to be an active user on the project's Discord server!

The summary of this article is don't try to take airdrop by doing nothing! You normally use a dapp or a chain and if one day there will be a DAO you will be rewarded! Remember protocols see everything with on-chain analytics! You can't fool them! Use a chain if you need it, support the community, help the protocol grow! Money doesn't grow on trees - it comes from swap fees and LP pools!

I have written a few articles for probable future airdrops (of course always do your research first!): 

How GMX Works On Arbitrum: Here's Why You Should Use It!

How StarkWare Works: StarkEx & StarkNet. Stark Token For Sorare Community?

Unstoppable Domains Will Give An Airdrop Like Ethereum Name Service?

If you want to give any other advice, feel free to use the comments!

What's the biggest airdrop you've received?

Are you interested in ways to earn crypto bonus? Check it out here: Some Sites To Earn Crypto Bonus (Old & New)