# The 5 red flags that made me skip the Sonic airdrop

**Published by:** [Signal Compounders](https://paragraph.com/@fipcrypto/)
**Published on:** 2025-07-23
**Categories:** thoughts
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@fipcrypto/the-5-red-flags-that-made-me-skip-the-sonic-airdrop

## Content

I’ve wasted too much time on bad airdrops to fall for another one. Overhyped airdrops are ones that usually perform the worst. There was so much excitement on the timeline for Sonic, but that eventually led to frustration with the allocation checker yesterday. CryptoDinduz @CryptoDinduz $HYPE airdrop “You only need 1 tx and you good to go” $S airdrop “Oh you are a FTM OG, been using every single new useless DEX, lost funds on multichain, bridged all your stuff to Sonic, minted shards, farmed points, supported the community for years? Sorry no airdrop for you” 566 1:11 • 23 Jul 2025 I’m grateful that I didn’t waste too much time on this airdrop, and these were the warning signs that convinced me that Sonic wasn’t worth it:Constantly shilling about their airdropIf the airdrop is the only reason that entices users to use the chain, then it’s doomed to fail. Sonic went hard on promoting their airdrop at every opportunity. Sonic Labs @SonicLabs Mainnet. FTM to S. Gateway. Airdrop points? You've been earning points for the ~200M $S airdrop since our launch. Next, we'll unveil a new leaderboard to track points and gems blog.soniclabs.com/sonic-points-a… 2,042 23:03 • 26 Dec 2024 Some of their posts even looked like ones that engagement farmers would post (and it shocked me how the official brand account was posting it instead). FIP Crypto | Footprint @fipcrypto I thought this tweet was posted by those engagement farming influencers (because of the style of the picture). But turns out, it’s actuall by the official account. I’m concerned when a project keeps shilling its airdrop. Sonic Labs @SonicLabs What’s the difference between Sonic Points and Sonic Gems in the ~200M $S airdrop? Sonic Points: For users. Sonic Gems: For developers. Learn about them in depth: blog.soniclabs.com/sonic-points-a… 74 0:24 • 6 Dec 2024 I find that the best airdrops come from projects that constantly deny the existence of an airdrop (or they don’t talk about it at all). These are projects that care more about their product and are looking to constantly improve it, instead of feeding on hype. 0xjager @0xjager I avoided Sonic like the plague when they showed exactly how much money they were gonna airdrop. Major red flag lol and such weird optics from these industry veterans 1 23:31 • 22 Jul 2025 And how they structured their airdrop gave me less motivation to interact with it:Points system with known criteriaI don’t like it when projects share the full formula on how to earn points for their program. This encourages farming and exploitation, which ultimately dilutes the value of each point. Sonic Labs @SonicLabs Activity Points (AP) Earn AP by deploying your assets as liquidity on participating apps. This provides 2x the amount of points compared to simply holding assets. Find a list of participating apps below. my.soniclabs.com/apps?pointsOnl… 29 22:12 • 24 Mar 2025 This also leads to higher expectations of a good drop, especially if the leaderboard ranking and point totals are publicly available. That’s why I prefer when projects launch point systems without known criteria (similar to Hyperliquid and Abstract): Points can’t be gamed as the formula dynamically changes every week. It doesn’t mean that I would skip the airdrop entirely if they have a public points system, but I would allocate less effort there if the system can be easily gamed by Sybils. And this reason is probably why we saw Sonic all over the timeline:Referrals (could) impact earningsTons of airdrop accounts were shilling the Sonic airdrop because they had a referral system: We could earn 10% of the points our referees earn: Sonic Labs @SonicLabs Also, we're releasing the #Sonic Airdrop Dashboard powered by @SentioXYZ Track your points and refer your friends to Sonic Arcade with a unique link to earn 10% of the points they earn! Check it out: airdrop.soniclabs.com 78 6:48 • 1 Oct 2024 I’m not sure how much these accounts benefited from referrals (since I haven’t seen anyone who was eligible for the drop yet). But it felt way too over-shilled on the timeline and that made me have less motivation to interact with it. And of course, they recently launched their Yapper leaderboard too: Sonic Labs @SonicLabs Sonic is now live on @KaitoAI. Earn $S airdrop points by sharing content and insights about Sonic, tracked on our Yapper Leaderboard. Your mindshare matters. blog.soniclabs.com/sonic-integrat… 1,744 21:23 • 27 Jun 2025 I decided to allocate my funds to other airdrops for this reason:A vested airdropOnly 25% of our entire allocation would be available immediately, while the rest are vested within 270 days. Sonic Labs @SonicLabs The first season of the $S airdrop will be distributed in two phases. 25% Liquid A quarter of your allocations will be instantly claimable for liquid $S. 75% Vested The rest vests over 270 days as tradeable NFTs with early-claim burns. docs.soniclabs.com/funding/sonic-… 2,187 1:07 • 3 Jun 2025 270 days (~ 9 months) is a long time, especially in this space where anything can happen. There have been some wins with vested airdrops like Solayer, but these are the anomalies. FIP Crypto | Footprint @fipcrypto Probably one of the best vested airdrops, where the value of my tokens keeps increasing. I claimed an additional 59 LAYER, and it'll be good to revisit the site to claim your allocation consistently (ends on 18 July). katexbt.hl @katexbt I am willing to bet there's a good 10% of my followers who claimed $LAYER, sold it, forgot about the part where it streams rest of your allo to you until July. Yes, you have more free money available. But surely they won't see this post? Will they? 69 16:11 • 26 Apr 2025 We need to have full confidence that the team continues to ship, as we’re exposed to it during this period. And I have less confidence in teams that overpromised but underdelivered:Mixed messaging about the testnetMany have asked me why I don’t share testnet airdrops, but it’s mainly because there are few that are worth our time. I would only prioritise testnet airdrops that explicitly state are incentivised. FIP Crypto | Footprint @fipcrypto The most overlooked truth about testnets: ​ They were never meant to guarantee airdrops. ​ Here’s my take on the recent drama and how I'm approaching testnets in a smarter way: cygaar @0xCygaar The main reason why I don't like testnet incentivization is because real users will always be at a disadvantage. Testnet transactions are essentially free, which means it's super easy for someone to automate massive amounts of activity. There's basically a 0% chance that a real 229 20:09 • 31 Dec 2024 But even that can be misleading, just like what we saw with Sonic. I wasn’t following Sonic Arcade closely (as it seemed like another mindless grind), but it looks like they overpromised that it was incentivised. bit @dellingerxbt "Testnet general use was never advertised as being incentivized." cooked 4 22:50 • 22 Jul 2025 In the end, it amounted to an insignificant weightage on users’ allocation. I would be cautious about projects that actively shill their testnet points program, because it’s likely to pad stats over anything else. Sonic Labs @SonicLabs New anti-bot measures are now fully implemented on #SonicArcade! Play free games, earn points, and get a share of the ~200 million $S airdrop. arcade.soniclabs.com 643 8:06 • 7 Nov 2024 Airdrops are becoming harder to get, so we should not solely rely on them:Airdrops are just a bonus (make money with your funds instead)If we knew where to look on Sonic, we could have earned a decent return on our holdings. Some protocols provided good yield for stablecoins or ETH: PhatBear @0xphatbear Bridged more $USDC over to Sonic and threw them in @beets_fi. We got less than a month before the $S drop, so I'm not really looking for crazy plays during this consolidation. This is for earning conservative yields while also positioning myself for the next move. 1. 50% goes 1 23:22 • 27 May 2025 While airdrops are nice to have, I’m treating them as a bonus: I don’t want to mindlessly burn fees in hopes for an airdrop. Instead, I want to make a return based on my activities on the chain and get an airdrop on top of it. This was something I learned from the Eclipse airdrop: FIP Crypto | Footprint @fipcrypto x.com/i/article/1945… 110 23:04 • 16 Jul 2025 We can’t afford to waste our resources on airdrops with a poor ROI:Time is your most valuable assetSo many airdrops are being sold as ‘free’ opportunities to make 3-4 figures. But if they involve mindless clicking or other easily repeatable tasks: It will be heavily botted by Sybils and the returns will be poor. Projects are no longer rewarding us based on the number of transactions we push on the network. That playbook died long ago with Arbitrum. So we have to be smarter and spot the best airdrops based on our capital and time constraints. I shared the top factors I use here.

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