Original Golem Golem Odaily February 4, 2026 11:45 Beijing Immersed in reading on a novel reader
Exclusive interview with an insider of the cash red envelope, providing tips for Web3 traffic strategies.
Author: Golem
Produced | Odaily Planet Daily (ID: o-daily)
“xxx sent you a cash red envelope!”
After the cash red envelope activity for cash red envelopes began on February 1, many long-dead projects/research groups completely transformed into mutual aid groups for 'wool-pulling' cash red envelopes.
Transitioning from a prestigious crypto trader to a 'wool-pulling' participant in cash red envelope schemes is also a helpless move for those in the crypto circle.
On January 31, the global financial market plummeted, with previously soaring precious metals rapidly collapsing. Spot silver has nearly erased its gains for the year, and spot gold once fell below $4500. The crypto market didn't fare any better; Bitcoin broke below the $75000 support level on February 2, hitting a low of $74604, ETH dropped to a low of $2157.14, and SOL even fell below $100, reaching a low of $95.95.
According to Coinglass data, on January 31, the total liquidation amount in the crypto market reached $2.5615 billion, setting a record for the highest single-day liquidation volume since the '1011 crash.' Therefore, 'losing to the point of not wanting to speak' has become the real psychological state of many crypto people (such as the now-silent Yi Lihua).
For those in the crypto circle who have just experienced a bloodbath, earning Yuanbao red envelopes may seem like a drop in the bucket in terms of recovering losses, but it can provide some psychological comfort, allowing them to temporarily escape the harsh market reality.
Jokes in group chats
Crypto airdrops, from suffering in silence to passionate rights defense.
Saying that Yuanbao's cash red envelopes are the biggest airdrops for today's crypto people is not just a gimmick.
The cash red envelope amount that Yuanbao can distribute to each user is not large, mostly ranging from tens to several dozen RMB, but its value lies in the simplicity of interaction and the fact that it's truly cost-free. Users only need to spend a little time recruiting others and gradually experience the product functions to earn cash red envelopes, and the task cycle is short, allowing for quick returns.
In contrast, crypto project airdrops are all distributed in the form of tokens, and only when the tokens are sold can they be considered real profits. Although the visible amounts are mostly much higher than Yuanbao, after deducting time, research, opportunities, wear and tear, and potential costs of being stuck with tokens, how much is left?
A user who has accompanied Infinex for 406 days feels this deeply. On January 31, the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform Infinex announced TGE and airdrop claims, the project party successfully landed, but the community was collectively 'reaped'.
A Million is Just a Cat (X: @RXu107) is a typical representative of being 'reaped.' On February 1, he stated that he spent over $11900 (equivalent to 82,000 RMB) to participate in this project (4400 U to buy NFT, 7500 U to participate in public offering), and as a community member, he deeply accompanied it for 406 days. However, on TGE day, not only did he not recover his costs, but he also suffered a loss exceeding 100,000 RMB (2900 U + 11,284 INX that have not been unlocked).
Faced with being reaped, the blogger had no choice but to repeatedly tell friends about his discomfort.
The blogger who was reaped by Infinex expressed his discomfort to friends.
At the time of Infinex TGE, the fully diluted market value was only $150 million, while the total investment for Yuanbao's New Year red envelope activity was about $140 million in USD. What does this mean? It is equivalent to Tencent directly buying Infinex at its maximum valuation and giving it away for free to the entire nation.
Faced with the pain of being 'reaped' and deceived, most in the community choose to handle it like 'A Million is Just a Cat'—suffering in silence, but some choose to stand up and confront the project party.
Crypto blogger Ice Frog (X: @Ice_Frog666666) is a typical representative; he started out by farming, but dramatically, by 2025, Ice Frog is either fighting for airdrop rights or is on the path to doing so. He is currently negotiating with the prediction market project Space (Odaily Note: Space raised $20 million, and the team privately took away $13 million), and has even taken legal action.
Web2 can afford airdrops, while Web3 cannot afford promises.
The most ironic point is that the current imbalance of 'input-output' in crypto airdrops is not simply the 'moral decay' of a single project, but rather a result of a complete change in industry structure.
In 2020, Uniswap kicked off the era of crypto project airdrops, after which crypto projects flourished, with stories of airdropping cars, airdropping houses, and airdropping A8 attracting waves of people into the farming track, presenting a beautiful picture of an 'industry in an upward phase.'
But by 2025, everything changed. Market narratives became exhausted, primary financing weakened, and secondary buying pressure was insufficient. Airdrops were no longer about sharing the future with early users, but rather about mortgaging the future to the present data, creating an exit path for the project party or exchanging for the next round of financing windows. As a result, big profits disappeared, small profits shrank, and 'being reaped' became the norm in the industry.
The so-called airdrop is merely rewriting the advertising budget into a reward pool, establishing a growth relationship directly with users, bypassing third parties. Whether it's the 1 billion RMB offered by Web2's Yuanbao or the fixed airdrop allocation given by Web3 projects in token economics, the essence is the same logic.
But the difference is that Web2 giants use cash to buy user certainty, while Web3 treats token rewards as a possibly redeemable promise, resulting in the same playbook, yet two different fates.
The certainty of Yuanbao cash red envelopes comes from cash flow and constraint mechanisms. Tencent's strong cash flow ensures that Yuanbao can 'issue,' and the mature legal constraint mechanism ensures that Yuanbao cannot be 'defaulted,' combined with the 'simple and brainless' no-threshold interaction, so users inherently understand it as 'welfare.'
In contrast, people in the crypto circle not only bear costs several times higher than those in Web2 (such as funds, time, and energy), but also have to worry about witches, token unlocking periods, and ever-changing airdrop rules. The most ironic thing is that the returns from all this end up being less than those from Yuanbao.
Thus, today's crypto airdrops have long since devolved from direct growth rewards into promises of responsibility that are continuously deferred or even unfulfilled. If this situation does not change by 2026, then what will be sacrificed along with it is user retention.
From user acquisition to retention, the utility of airdrops can at most only support the first half.
Using airdrops for user acquisition has always been the most common and direct means of dealing with strong competitors in the business world.
Tencent's investment of 1 billion RMB in supporting Yuanbao is because its competitor, Doubao, is strong enough. By the end of 2025, Doubao will be the first AI product in the country to exceed 100 million daily active users. The same goes for Web3; in the prediction market track, Polymarket stands out, and to capture users, Opinion, predict.fun, and Limitless are also using point airdrop methods to directly pull users into the product.
In the short term, airdrops can indeed create a huge influx of users, but in the long run, what determines user retention is still factors like product-market fit, user experience, and ecosystem interactions. The history of Web3 is not short of projects that were bustling before airdrops and then became deserted after them, so both Web2 and Web3 face the same 'post-airdrop problem': how to retain users.
Ten years ago, Tencent, a company skilled at imitating and then surpassing, pushed WeChat Pay into the national-level entry with 'WeChat Red Envelopes,' proving its familiarity with the link of 'user acquisition → retention → habit.' Whether they can create the miracle of Yuanbao again in the same way is widely debated, but at least they have ample experience in 'how to convert airdrops into retention.'
To this end, Odaily Planet Daily contacted an internal staff member of Yuanbao and asked how Web3 project airdrops should be improved from a product perspective. The response was very practical:
As one of the largest internet companies by market value, Tencent's Web3 projects may not have direct references, but the core of using airdrops as a means of acquisition is still to enhance retention. This requires a series of follow-up actions after the airdrop, such as public relations and marketing thinking about how to further spread the tactics, and the product side also needs to take more actions to achieve this.
From the perspective of Web3 practitioners, merely discussing traffic tactics feels shallow. What functions beyond tokens keep users, is more worthy of scrutiny.