Web3 presents a unique opportunity to redefine value distribution and community engagement through mechanisms like airdrops. However, the challenge lies in crafting these mechanisms to be fair and effective. This note proposes a solution rooted in democratic deliberation: utilizing citizens' assemblies to design the criteria for airdrops, ensuring they reflect the collective will and diversity of the community they aim to serve and reducing the attack surface for critics.

Airdrops have the potential to democratize access to digital assets, foster participation, and distribute governance across a decentralized ecosystem. However, without meticulously designed criteria, airdrops risk reinforcing existing inequalities, overlooking diverse community segments, or failing to engage the community meaningfully. In the worst case and as we have seen again and again, the airdrop turns the community against the project itself. The question then arises: how can we design a process to define airdrop criteria which is fair for all stakeholders?

Citizens' Assemblies offer a blueprint for engaging a microcosm of a community in deep, deliberative decision-making. By randomly selecting members to reflect the broader community's demographics, these assemblies can gather diverse perspectives, mitigate biases, and reach consensus on complex issues—like the criteria for airdrop eligibility and distribution. Assemblies have been around for 50 years but have exponentially taken off in the past 5 years: They are used by many public authorities and private actors to improve decision-making in complex environments. The European Commission has based its full Web4.0 strategy on such an Assembly, the French government has recently shaped its climate and end-of-life policies thanks to Citizens’ Assemblies. In the US state of Oregon, CAs are coupled with referenda. Meta has already run two rounds of CAs (called community forums) to craft internal policy (for example on AI). In Web3, we have recently deployed the first pilot in the Cosmos Ecosystem around the condition to enter and leave the Atom Economic Zone. CAs are powerful because they combine cognitive diversity (through random selection of participants), procedural strength (through a process of informed and facilitated discussion), and legitimacy (through the non-partisanship, efficiency, and transparency of the process).

A CA is a perfect fit for airdrop criteria design for the following reasons:

1. The random selection of participants allows to balance out the overweight of the loudest crowd and make sure to include the silent majority.

2. The process of learning and expert hearings allows to bring in the expertise and experience of past airdrops teams to reflect on their successes and limitations.

3. The process is open: This cuts short to speculations, exaggerated farming, FUD (e-beggars), and FOMO (which almost always brings frustration).

4. At the same time, it is better than point systems that mainly reward bigger players and have a plutocratic bias. Point systems also often ignore past usage.

5. It allows the distribution team to get a very precise image of their community when their community thinks: CAs are “what the people think when they think”. They go out of their bubble.

6. The random selection + process is a very powerful defense against FUD from professional farmers as the legitimacy of random selection + the open process cut the accusations of backdoor deals, untransparent criteria crafting, etc.

7. Citizens' assemblies can deliberate iteratively on what constitutes fair eligibility criteria for airdrops, considering factors such as prior engagement, contribution to the ecosystem, and even measures to ensure newcomers have opportunities to participate. This process leads to the development of innovative criteria that balance rewarding past contributions with fostering future engagement and diversity.

8. Ensuring Inclusivity: One of the most critical roles of citizens' assemblies is to ensure that the airdrop criteria do not inadvertently exclude underrepresented groups. Through deliberation, assemblies can identify and mitigate potential biases, ensuring that the airdrop serves as a tool for enhancing diversity and inclusivity within the community.

Web3 presents a unique opportunity to redefine value distribution and community engagement through mechanisms like airdrops. However, the challenge lies in crafting these mechanisms to be fair and effective. This note proposes a solution rooted in democratic deliberation: utilizing citizens' assemblies to design the criteria for airdrops, ensuring they reflect the collective will and diversity of the community they aim to serve and reducing the attack surface for critics.

Airdrops have the potential to democratize access to digital assets, foster participation, and distribute governance across a decentralized ecosystem. However, without meticulously designed criteria, airdrops risk reinforcing existing inequalities, overlooking diverse community segments, or failing to engage the community meaningfully. In the worst case and as we have seen again and again, the airdrop turns the community against the project itself. The question then arises: how can we design a process to define airdrop criteria which is fair for all stakeholders?

Citizens' Assemblies offer a blueprint for engaging a microcosm of a community in deep, deliberative decision-making. By randomly selecting members to reflect the broader community's demographics, these assemblies can gather diverse perspectives, mitigate biases, and reach consensus on complex issues—like the criteria for airdrop eligibility and distribution. Assemblies have been around for 50 years but have exponentially taken off in the past 5 years: They are used by many public authorities and private actors to improve decision-making in complex environments. The European Commission has based its full Web4.0 strategy on such an Assembly, the French government has recently shaped its climate and end-of-life policies thanks to Citizens’ Assemblies. In the US state of Oregon, CAs are coupled with referenda. Meta has already run two rounds of CAs (called community forums) to craft internal policy (for example on AI). In Web3, we have recently deployed the first pilot in the Cosmos Ecosystem around the condition to enter and leave the Atom Economic Zone. CAs are powerful because they combine cognitive diversity (through random selection of participants), procedural strength (through a process of informed and facilitated discussion), and legitimacy (through the non-partisanship, efficiency, and transparency of the process).

A CA is a perfect fit for airdrop criteria design for the following reasons:

1. The random selection of participants allows to balance out the overweight of the loudest crowd and make sure to include the silent majority.

2. The process of learning and expert hearings allows to bring in the expertise and experience of past airdrops teams to reflect on their successes and limitations.

3. The process is open: This cuts short to speculations, exaggerated farming, FUD (e-beggars), and FOMO (which almost always brings frustration).

4. At the same time, it is better than point systems that mainly reward bigger players and have a plutocratic bias. Point systems also often ignore past usage.

5. It allows the distribution team to get a very precise image of their community when their community thinks: CAs are “what the people think when they think”. They go out of their bubble.

6. The random selection + process is a very powerful defense against FUD from professional farmers as the legitimacy of random selection + the open process cut the accusations of backdoor deals, untransparent criteria crafting, etc.

7. Citizens' assemblies can deliberate iteratively on what constitutes fair eligibility criteria for airdrops, considering factors such as prior engagement, contribution to the ecosystem, and even measures to ensure newcomers have opportunities to participate. This process leads to the development of innovative criteria that balance rewarding past contributions with fostering future engagement and diversity.

8. Ensuring Inclusivity: One of the most critical roles of citizens' assemblies is to ensure that the airdrop criteria do not inadvertently exclude underrepresented groups. Through deliberation, assemblies can identify and mitigate potential biases, ensuring that the airdrop serves as a tool for enhancing diversity and inclusivity within the community.