The Golden Days of Airdrops Remember back in 2020?

That was when airdrops were a pleasant surprise. I’ll never forget my first one—waking up to a WhatsApp ping from a friend telling me I had 400 UNI tokens waiting on Uniswap, worth over $1,000 at the time. No forms, no Discord grinding—just a reward for using a platform I already loved. It felt like a “stimmy” (stimulus check) from the crypto gods! Then came the 1inch drop and the game-changer, dYdX, where a single day of bridging ETH and trading netted me a cool $20,000. Those were the days of DeFi summer, where yield farming on platforms like JulDswap brought in $250 a day. It was exhilarating, and it hooked me—and so many others—on this wild Web3 ride.

Back then, airdrops were simple. They rewarded loyal users without the hassle, and the lack of competition meant the rewards were substantial. Data from DefiLlama shows the total value locked in DeFi peaked at $100 billion in 2021, fueled by this enthusiasm. It was a time when interacting with a protocol felt organic, not like a chore.

The Slow Decline

But nothing gold can stay, right? The airdrop scene started to sour with projects like zkSync and Scroll. I had high hopes for Scroll—especially after co-founder Sandy’s tweet urging us to lower expectations—but the drop was a letdown. The allocation was so small it felt comical, and the community’s mood shifted from hype to despair in real-time. That moment stuck with me, marking the beginning of a trend where airdrops became more about jumping through hoops than genuine rewards.

Fast forward to today, and the landscape is grim. Airdrops now involve months of bridging, liquidity providing, and gas fee burning, only to yield peanuts with brutal vesting schedules—like 0G Labs’ 48-month unlock, which feels like a lifetime! The rise of “sybil farming,” where users create multiple accounts to game the system, has turned it into an industrial business. A 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research study backs this up, revealing that 70% of airdrop participants use multi-account strategies. Meanwhile, registration portals open for just 48 hours (thanks, Sunrise!), leaving many out in the cold. It’s a far cry from the surprise drops of yesteryear.

The Blame Game: Users vs. Teams So, who’s at fault?

Well, it’s a bit of both. As users, we’ve become reward-chasers. Gone are the days of interacting with chains like Arbitrum just for fun—now, it’s all about the airdrop alpha. On the flip side, teams are playing their own game, inflating user metrics to impress VCs and juice up valuations. The result? A mutual feeling of being used. Projects struggle with retention, and users feel cheated by tiny allocations that don’t match their efforts. It’s a vicious cycle, and as @OxTochi put it, “nobody is happy.”

A Better Way Forward?

So, what’s the fix? I love the idea of returning to the Uniswap model—surprise drops for loyal users with no leaderboards or carrot-dangling. This could cut down on sybil farming and reset expectations. Alternatively, the Sui approach—presale-style drops with fair FDV—gives early contributors a real stake. Projects like Cysic and Boundless are experimenting with tiered bonuses based on ecosystem contributions, which feels more equitable.

But here’s the bold take: maybe we should just cancel airdrops altogether. A 2022 MIT Sloan paper suggests that sustainable blockchain projects thrive by focusing on user adoption and product-market fit, not speculative token handouts. Instead of forking the same protocol 200 times, teams could build something that actually works—think real revenue models over hype. It might just save Web3 from the $2 billion annual loss from airdrop scams reported by Chainalysis in 2024.

The Bottom Line

The current state of airdrops is a mess. They don’t benefit the grinders, and they don’t build true communities for teams. As @NiphermeDave pointed out in the X thread, a project’s relevance hinges on its product, not its airdrop. Look at G7—great drop, but the token tanked because the product didn’t stick. Maybe it’s time to ditch the airdrop treadmill and focus on building stuff that makes everyone money. What do you think—should we hit reset on airdrops, or is there still hope for a revival? Drop your thoughts below—I’d love to hear from you!