其中，LooksRare和X2Y2作为前段时间较为热门的项目，通过代币空投和挖矿等策略实现了项目的冷启动和早期获客，对OpenSea造成了一定的影响。然而，基于二者在空投和挖矿的具体策略以及社群基础上的不同，二者后续的币价表现和实际影响力也存在差异。

在链上交易透明的Web3.0世界中，吸血攻击并不罕见。然而，如何在早期成功获客之后巩固市场份额，留住用户甚至持续扩张，仍然有待创业团队们的探索。下图一显示LooksRare推出之后OpenSea的交易量占比在断崖式下降后逐渐出现大幅回升。同时如图二所示，若剔除LooksRare中不含NFT版税的交易以避免对刷量交易的统计，则其交易量远无法和OpenSea相比，而X2Y2的交易量也在上线初期的热度逐渐褪去后快速下降。

LooksRare

LooksRare在代币分配上预留了75%作为对社区的奖励，同时将私募售出的代币份额压缩至3.3%。而7.5亿用于社区激励的代币又被分为了空投、质押奖励和交易奖励。

首先，LooksRare将1.2亿枚的$LOOKS精准空投给21年6月至12月在OpenSea上交易超过3个ETH的用户，且交易量越大的地址获得的$LOOKS越多，并规定用户仅能在规定的时间内领取。此举将早期利益分配给了积极参与NFT交易的玩家，将交易活跃度不高的散户排除在外，能够较好地通过和NFT巨鲸玩家进行利益绑定而促使巨鲸/KOL自发对项目进行宣传；同时创造未能获得空投的散户在二级市场接盘的空间，对其上线后币价的稳定性起到一定帮助。

在锁定NFT核心玩家地址之后，LooksRare采取交易挖矿策略，即对所有在其平台上的交易进行代币奖励。交易挖矿的代币高达4.4亿枚，买方和卖方均可获得奖励。由于交易挖矿部分的代币份额占比较高，此部分代币将分四个阶段在共721天分发完毕，前两个阶段奖励代币的量明显高于后两个阶段，为早期交易挖矿提供较为可观的收益。同时，最初之时交易挖矿仅针对大于1000个ETH的交易，因此巨鲸地址在早期交易挖矿可获得相当可观的收益。

然而，交易挖矿的一个明显的缺陷即会导致刷量，在LooksRare之前，Rarible也曾采取交易挖矿来激励用户，且无法避免地产生了刷量现象。LooksRare强调其2%的交易手续费和5%-10%的NFT版税将抑制数量现象，但从其远高于有版税NFT交易量的无版税NFT交易量来看，刷量现象难以避免。即使交易量一度超越OpenSea，LooksRare实际用户数仍然远小于OpenSea。另外通过对比OpenSea和LooksRare每笔交易的平均交易额也可看出LooksRare成为了巨鲸交易的游乐场。

从Web3.0的定义上来看，Web3.0协议和Web2.0产品在设计上的核心差异在于Web3.0将收益返还给真正使用产品的用户，收益的返还有利于维持用户忠诚度，并在未来实现社区自治。因此，LooksRare的交易手续费收益将全部分配给质押$LOOKS的用户。交易手续费以每6500个以太坊区块（约24小时）计算，前6500个区块的收益将按比例分配给在下6500个区块进行质押的用户。由于每个地址得到的质押奖励按质押代币的数量和质押的时间计算得来，在最初代币流通量较少的阶段，空投和被动质押的私募、团队、金库部分代币将在平台手续费的分红上占据优势。

在交易手续费分红的基础上，项目还预留了约1.9亿枚代币用于奖励质押，而这1.9亿枚代币和交易挖矿部分一样经历四个释放阶段，前30天的释放量为最后361天的10倍，因此对早期空投和上述被动质押部分形成较好的奖励。而金库资金的积累有利于项目长期的发展。

X2Y2

X2Y2同样通过空投和挖矿实现项目的冷启动，但和LooksRare很大的不同在于，X2Y2以Initial Liquidity Offering的方式代替LooksRare的私募售卖。并且虽然质押奖励（即对应LooksRare的质押挖矿和交易挖矿部分，共占63%）占比达65%，X2Y2以挂单挖矿的方式取代了交易挖矿，以促进真实交易市场在其平台上的形成。

X2Y2的设计初衷为公平的代币分红，Initial Liquidity Offering面向社区募资，通过白名单的方式抽选社群和Beta版本用户，并将募集的资金全部用于流动性供应。此举相对于LooksRare的私募售卖而言，鼓励了X2Y2的原生社群和用户，但和LooksRare私募部分的6个月锁仓相比在初期造成了部分代币抛压。另外，和LooksRare的私募部分一样，ILO部分的代币无论解锁与否都将获得交易手续费分红的资格。

X2Y2代币的空投部分同样为1.2亿枚，但空投将分配给所有在2022年以前使用过OpenSea的用户。空投虽采取了阶梯制度对30个ETH交易量以上的巨鲸和不同交易量等级的散户进行了分级，但将每个巨鲸地址能领取到的代币限制在了1000枚，散户获取的空投依然根据交易量比例计算，且所有领取空投的地址需要在X2Y2上进行NFT挂单。

在65%的质押奖励代币中，20%的代币将连同平台产生的交易手续费一起奖励给质押代币的用户。在质押奖励的释放上，X2Y2和LooksRare一样在早期大量释放后逐阶段缩紧，激励早期的代币锁仓。另外45%的代币则用于奖励在平台上挂单NFT的用户，此部分代币在720天内逐区块匀速释放，激励优质和受欢迎的NFT挂单，并对价格进行监控，对高于市场价的挂单不予以奖励，以鼓励真实、优质的NFT资产在平台上形成市场。

总体而言，相比LooksRare，X2Y2在代币经济的设计上保障了初期散户和原生社群用户可获得的利益，从资产供应层面进行了激励，有利于优质NFT资产在其平台上的汇聚。但同时，X2Y2未经鼓励的交易量无法产生充足的交易手续费，手续费奖励部分的质押APR极低（目前为2.4%），难以对用户质押形成激励。

另外，针对所有散户开放的空投将过早地消耗潜在的二级市场买盘。对比LooksRare和X2Y2的初期流通量，如图七所示，虽然空投占比相同，且30天内LooksRare代币流通量高于X2Y2，LooksRare的代币价格相对于X2Y2还是维持了更加稳定的走势。X2Y2代币价格仅4天之后即步入了持续下跌的趋势，而LooksRare代币在上线后的前30天价格都较为稳定。当然，LooksRare在2月10日第一阶段结束，挖矿奖励减少之后代币价格也难以避免地持续下跌。

TL;DR

从以上对于LooksRare和X2Y2的冷启动策略分析和二者的实际表现来看，二者虽在上线初在社区取得了一定的影响力，但从后续的实际使用来看在短期依然无法对OpenSea的霸主地位产生冲击。

LooksRare难以形成真实的交易市场，无法很好地捕获优质NFT资产、巩固和留住真实用户；代币分配和激励上利好巨鲸地址，鼓励社区KOL对项目进行推广，刺激代币上线后二级市场买盘的形成。其交易挖矿策略虽导致了刷量现象，但也为质押用户提供了相对较好的手续费收益。金库部分代币的被动质押也有利于积累资金，为项目长期发展打好基础。

X2Y2在代币激励设计上更为“公平”，空投限制了对巨鲸地址的激励，但也导致所有潜在用户过早地入局；加上其由于并未采取交易挖矿的策略，交易手续费激励不足，一旦币价出现下跌，二级市场容易快速出现螺旋式抛盘。挂单挖矿的方式能够促进优质资产市场在其平台上的形成，从长期角度鼓励用户留存。

依靠精准空投和挖矿的Web3.0冷启动策略虽然能够在短时间内吸引存量用户，但在后续的用户留存以及对增量用户的吸引上仍然表现乏力。早期空投和挖矿从资金层面而言更像是巨鲸和散户间的博弈，目前无法完全依靠代币来作为Web3.0的营销手段。Web3.0项目想要保持长期竞争力还需综合以下层面进行设计：

1. 和Web2.0营销策略相结合，树立品牌，明确平台定位，为未来获得增量用户打好基础。OpenSea至今未发币且可能进行IPO，但依然依靠先发优势牢牢占据市场；LooksRare在国际范围内影响力优于X2Y2，社群关注人数较多，而X2Y2仅在中文社区获得较好的流量关注，币价、用户和交易量滑坡严重。

2. 注重产品层面的优化，如增加产品功能和降低Gas费，增强产品的易用性和差异化特色，从实用角度留住用户。

3. 在巨鲸和散户的利益分配上做好平衡，避免市场情绪和买盘的过早消耗。

4. 注意代币价格下跌对用户积极性的影响，避免过度“矿”化。增强代币在项目生态中的实际使用需求，将代币的实际使用和产品功能相结合，提高社区的实际参与度，鼓励代币使用而非“挖卖提”。

5. 积累协议资金，为长周期运营做好准备。

Both LooksRare and X2Y2 drew attention by airdropping tokens to the addresses that have interacted with OpenSea and providing staking pools that distribute the platform fee to their token holders, thus caused a “vampire attack” that siphons users from OpenSea. Based on the difference of their token model, token distribution strategy, and community construction, the actual influence and the token performance of the two projects also vary.

Graph 1 shows the rebound of OpenSea’s marketshare after the dip. Also, if the trading volume of non-royalty NFTs were taken out to avoid the impact from wash trading, the trading volume of LooksRare is actually far less than the OpenSea. And the trading volume of both the LooksRare and X2Y2 shows a continued decreasing trend.

LooksRare

As shown in the Graph 3, 75% of the tokens were saved to incentivize the community, and the tokens for private sales were only 3.3%. The 750M tokens for community were further divided to airdrop, staking rewards and trading rewards.

120M tokens were airdropped to users that have traded more than 3 ETH from mid-June 2021 to mid-Dec 2021, with higher volume leads to higher amount of tokens. Such method gives out the rewards to active OpenSea users but rules out the retail users, onboarding the whales and KOLs and thus encourages them to help with the marketing spontaneously, while leaving room for the retail users to buy the tokens from the secondary market and help with the stability of the token price.

LooksRare adopts the trade farming strategy that rewards 44.1% of its tokens to all users (both buyers and sellers) that trade on its platform. 441M tokens will be distributed in 4 phases within 721 days, with the prior phases rewarding more tokens than the later ones. Only volumes higher than 1000ETH were eligible to claim the reward at the very beginning, as a result, whales  can earn substantial profits from participating in the early farming.

An inevitable problem result from the trade farming is the wash trading. Prior to LooksRare, another platform Rarible also adopted trade farming and result in severe wash trading. LooksRare claims that the 2% trading fee and 5%-10% royalty (applies to royalty NFT) will mitigate the problem, but what’s really been happening is that the volume of non-royalty NFT is far higher than the volume of royalty NFT. Also, despite its high total trading volume, which even once surpassed the OpenSea’s, LooksRare’s number of users is not comparable to OpenSea at all. In addition, the average volume per transaction for LooksRare is insanely high, making it a playground for the whales.

Moreover, all platform trading fees were distributed back to the token holders who stake their tokens. Trading fees are calculated by each block and the fees generated in the prior 6500 blocks (approximately 24h) are to be distributed to the users that stake during the next 6500 blocks in proportion. Volume and time staked are the major factors affecting the amount of rewards that can be farmed, and thus in the beginning while the circulating supply was low, users who hold tokens from airdrop, the team, and the treasury will have an advantage in dividing the fees. The team also prepared 190M tokens to reward the staking in addition to the platform trading fee. With the distribution phases like the trade farming (more tokens for prior phases) applied to the 190M rewards, the airdrop addresses, the team, and the treasury get benefited. Accumulation in treasury funds help the project to prepare for the long run. 

X2Y2

X2Y2 replaced the private sale with “Initial Liquidity Offering” (ILO), which opened its sale to the whitelisted community members. And the fund raised from the ILO will all be used to bootstrap the token’s liquidity. Also, instead of rewarding the traders, X2Y2 saved 45% of its tokens to reward the users who list qualified NFTs on its platform, encouraging a real market.

The ILO seems to be a more reasonable substitution to a private sale since it rewards X2Y2’s native community and beta version users. However, compared to the 6 month lock of LooksRare’s private sale, the linear releasing of X2Y2’s ILO tokens created sell pressure on the secondary market, though minor. 

Of the 65% staking reward for the community, 20% will be rewarded to staking token holders along with the platform trading fee, with more tokens allocated for releasing in early phases. The remaining 45% will be used to reward qualified NFT listings and released linearly within 720 days. Price monitoring are applied to the NFT listings to discourage fake listings.

Same as LooksRare, 120M tokens were going to be given out to OpenSea users. But not like LooksRare, all addresses that have traded on OpenSea before 2022 were eligible to claim $X2Y2. The amount of rewards were divided in tiers by trading volume, limiting the amount of tokens that can be claimed by a whale to 1000. Besides, all addresses need to list NFTs on X2Y2 in order to claim. 

Although seems “fairer”, Such airdrop method let in the retail users in the earliest stage and consumed the buying incentive from the retail users on the secondary market. As shown in Graph 7, Although $LOOKS’s circulating supply is higher than the $X2Y2’s after 30 days of token launch, $LOOKS maintained a much stable price in the early stage. $X2Y2 entered into a decreasing trend only 4 days after launch while $LOOKS showed fluctuation within 30 days after launch. Nevertheless, the price of $LOOKS have also been dropping ever since the end of its first phase mining led to lower mining reward. 

TL;DR

From the analysis of the market bootstrapping strategy and the actual performance of LooksRare and X2Y2, although they have made a splash to the market in the beginning of launch, but the actual usage and influence are not enough to challenge OpenSea.

LooksRare incentivized whales and encouraged promotions from whales and KOLs, creating buying needs on the secondary market, but has problem in forming real transactions and retaining real users; and also it lacks attractiveness for aggregating NFT assets. Trade farming led to wash trading, but generate enough platform fees both for users to farm and for the treasury to grow, accumulating funds for the project to compete in the long run.

X2Y2 has a “fairer” design in terms of the allocation of airdrop tokens. It lowered the rewards to whale addresses but let in all the potential users too early. Also, because tradings on X2Y2 are not rewarded, the trading fee generated in the platform are too low and the farming reward are only supported by the original minted tokens, and thus token price has a high risk of crush. However, the NFT listing farming attracts real orders and benefits the user adoption in the long run.

The market bootstrapping strategy that relies on the token airdrop and farming can quickly attract existing users in a short period of time, but is not able to help with user retention and has problem in bridging new users (eg. Users never traded on OpenSea before). The token rewarding system is more like a game that tries to balance between the whales and the retail users, and tokenomics can not be treated as the only way of Web3.0 marketing. More aspects should be taken into considerations:

1. Combine token strategies with traditional market strategies, have a clear market position and build up brand, prepare to capture new users that will enter the market in the future.

2. Pay attention to the product improvements (eg. Adding product features), improve the usability and strengthen the competitive advantage of the product, retaining the users.

3. Make a good balance between the whales and the retail users, avoid early consumption of buying needs and market sentiment.

4. Watch out the impact towards users’ activeness from the drop of token price, avoid becoming a pure mining game. Increasing the engagement of community and the token utility, especially combining the token with product usage scenarios. 

5. Prepare or find a way to accumulate funds to operate and promote the project in the long run.