Taking five projects as examples, let's discuss how airdrop conditions are becoming more refined and diversified

Authors: Hu Tao, Biscuit, Chain Catcher

On April 27, the Ethereum scaling solution Optimism officially announced the issuance of the token OP, with 5% of the total token supply airdropped to users who have frequently used Optimism and active users on the Ethereum mainnet, approximately 264,000 addresses meet the airdrop criteria.

It is worth noting that the airdrop rules this time are more diversified and refined compared to other projects' airdrops. For example, users with active records over four different weeks can receive additional rewards, and active DAO participants and multi-signature wallet users on Ethereum can also receive airdrops.

In the past year, with the emergence of many airdrop wealth effects and an increasing number of opportunists engaging in bulk interactions to chase airdrops, the formulation of airdrop rules has increasingly tested the wisdom and vision of project teams. In the past six months, many projects have moved away from the simple interaction-for-airdrop model, instead creating more refined rules for active loyal users. For example, users who are active over a longer period can receive higher weights, and even active Discord participants can receive substantial airdrops. At the same time, many project teams have begun to use airdrops as a way to attract quality community members and high-quality on-chain users.

In this regard, Chain Catcher has compiled relatively novel and refined airdrop rules from multiple projects (including Deversifi, Paraswap, Swivel, Optimism, DexGuru, etc.) over the past six months for readers' reference.

1. Deversifi

The Layer 2 trading protocol Deversifi announced an airdrop to historical interaction users on December 2, 2021, with the snapshot taken on November 16. At that time, the value of a single airdrop ranged from $700 to $3,600.

Deversifi stated that the project had 29,000 historical interaction users, but the actual number of users receiving airdrops was relatively limited, as the project had certain requirements regarding the amount and duration of user interactions. According to the blog, the project categorized historical trading users into five groups based on their trading amounts and periods:

• Users with a trading amount above $150 and active for at least 2 weeks can receive 62.5 DVF tokens.
• Users with a trading amount above $1,000 and active for at least 5 weeks can receive 200 DVF tokens.
• Users with a trading amount above $20,000 and active for at least 1 week can receive 100 DVF tokens.
• Users with a trading amount above $10,000 and active for at least 2 weeks can receive 250 DVF tokens.
• Users with a trading amount above $100,000 and active for at least 1 week can receive 300 DVF tokens.

It can be seen that the project places particular emphasis on the number of active weeks as a statistical indicator. Even if the trading amount is only $1,000, users with more active weeks receive airdrops higher than those with trading amounts above $10,000.

Additionally, Deversifi stated that it filtered suspicious accounts, canceling airdrop eligibility for accounts with repetitive small deposits, loss trades, or internal transfers.

Deversifi stated: "The filter provides a good initial method to eliminate those who deposit very little on the platform and do not trade, trade very little, or trade small amounts for a day and then exit, never to be seen again."

2. Paraswap

The decentralized exchange Paraswap conducted an airdrop to historical interaction users in mid-November 2021. The project had over 1.3 million historical interaction addresses but also set strict filtering processes to exclude potential airdrop hunters, resulting in about 26,000 qualifying addresses, with an average airdrop value of nearly $10,000 at the highest price.

The team explained the filtering logic for the token airdrop in the blog, aiming to reward genuine ParaSwap active users based on participation:

• Early users receive more airdrops: Rewards are given to the earliest users (from 2019), divided into three tiers with set airdrop caps. Even if early users have a small trading volume, they can still receive substantial airdrops.
• Cleaning up opportunist addresses: If multiple transactions originate from the same address or ultimately aggregate to the same address, they will be marked as opportunist addresses. Additionally, obvious wash trading is also marked as opportunist addresses, such as only trading ETH <-> WETH, BNB <-> WBNB.
• Multi-chain original data: Addresses must have at least 50 transaction histories on their respective networks or meet minimum native token balance requirements, with Ethereum's minimum token balance set at 0.028 ETH, BSC at 0.25 BNB, Polygon at 20 Matic, and Avalanche C-Chain at 0.9 AVAX.
• Interaction with other projects: Addresses that only interact with the project awaiting airdrop will be filtered out.
• Activity level: Users must have used ParaSwap at least 6 times in the past 6 months.
• Types of tokens traded: Users who only trade relatively obscure tokens will also not meet the criteria.

Additionally, Paraswap's airdrop considerations include the highest value of a single transaction, total number of trading orders, total trading volume, and the number of networks used with Paraswap. For example, having more than 10 total trading orders or a single transaction value exceeding $10,000 can add points to the airdrop quantity.

3. Swivel Finance

The decentralized interest rate derivatives protocol Swivel Finance launched its mainnet on February 10 and also retroactively airdropped SWIV tokens to community members and stakeholders. The project allocated 4.5% of the total token supply for community airdrops, with 0.5% for protected mainnet lenders, 1% for verified Discord community contributors (verified feedback and content), 1% for Gitcoin core alumni and mentors, and 2% for Compound, Aave, FEIRari (Fei + Rari) & Gitcoin on-chain governance participants, with the snapshot taken on February 8, qualifying 1,852 addresses.

Compared to the common interaction-for-airdrop model, this project's airdrop targets are limited to lenders, and it also includes active community communicators and active governance users from other mainstream lending projects, which is becoming an increasingly popular airdrop model.

Moreover, users and contributors eligible for the airdrop must first reach progressive milestones to unlock airdrop rewards. For every $2,500 traded, 100 SWIV tokens will be unlocked. If the corresponding trading volume is not completed within about a month, the unclaimed airdrop tokens will expire, indicating a strict standard.

4. DexGuru

The airdrop model announced by the decentralized trading aggregator DexGuru in February this year is even more unique. Unlike other trading aggregators that airdrop to interaction users, it airdropped NFTs to users who tipped DexGuru during trading, as well as to token holders of competitors like DEXT, UniWhales, Chartex, AstroTools, etc.

Subsequently, DexGuru launched DAO governance based on the NFT, determining the airdrop amount based on governance participation activity. Users who participate in over 50% of voting activities on the Snapshot platform are eligible for airdrops, while those participating in over 75% of voting activities qualify for a 1.5x multiplier on their airdrop.

It can be seen that from the rare tipping feature to governance participation, the project aims to further filter out loyal DexGuru users through a multi-layered screening model, enhancing the precision of the airdrop.

5. Optimism

The Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution Optimism designed six standards for airdropping tokens, two of which target early and active Optimism users, while four target active participants on L1 Ethereum.

a. Early and active users of Optimism.

• Early users: Addresses that bridged from L1 to Optimism before June 23, 2021, or used Optimism for trading for more than 1 day.
• Active users: Optimism users who conducted at least 1 transaction with Optimism applications over four different weeks.

b. Active Ethereum participants, including DAO members who voted or wrote at least one on-chain proposal, or at least two Snapshot (off-chain) proposals, addresses that are Multi-Sig and executed at least 10 transactions, Gitcoin donors, users who have used cross-chain bridges and traded at least once on Ethereum every month thereafter, and Ethereum cross-chain bridge users who trade twice a week on Optimism.

c. Overlapping bonuses: Addresses that meet the "Optimism early adopter" criteria and match at least 4 standard sets in total.

d. Global filtering: Addresses involved in witch attacks, Snapshot bots, spam, exchanges, attackers, etc.

Compared to other airdrops, the characteristic of the Optimism airdrop model lies in granting higher airdrop weights to users active over four different weeks, while also airdropping to active governance participants on the Ethereum mainnet and multi-signature wallet users. Additionally, Optimism also provides extra rewards to users who meet or exceed four conditions, ranging from 3,913 tokens to as many as 25,000 tokens, which is quite generous. This indicates that heavily participating users or seasoned on-chain users in a single project will receive increasingly more rewards in airdrops.