Original author: X-explore
Original translation: angelillu, Foresight News
The original English article was published by X-explore and WuBlockchain
Since Uniswap began using airdrop strategies to reward early users in 2020, airdrops have sparked a huge craze in Web3. As a result, the number of people looking for the next "free lunch" (looking for new airdrop projects) in many projects has surged. Today, it has been nearly three years since the Uniswap airdrop, and many large projects have followed suit during this time, using airdrops to reward users or attract attention. According to X-explore estimates, more than 20% of the airdrops in the Arbitrum airdrop in March this year were taken by so-called "free riders" who used Sybil attacks. Therefore, we hope to answer the following two questions through an in-depth analysis of users who have successfully received airdrops multiple times:
Who are these airdrop “experts”?
What is their next "goal"?
To answer the above questions, we carefully selected 5 projects from the numerous Ethereum and its Layer 2 projects with "more than 100,000 airdrop addresses" and "more than $140 million in total airdrop value". They are Uniswap, ENS, Optimism, Blur, and Arbitrum. The following article will explore the users of these five projects in depth, with a special focus on the "experts" who have received multiple airdrops from these projects.
Note: The price of the coin in this article is calculated based on data from CoinMarketCap as of June 7, 2023. Most of the screenshots in this article are from June 14, 2023, so the prices may be slightly different.
Who is the Airdrop Hunter?
We classify addresses that received at least three airdrops from the five projects as airdrop hunters; those who received three to four airdrops were classified as standard airdrop hunters, and those who received all five airdrops were called advanced airdrop hunters. In this analysis, we found a total of 34,547 standard airdrop hunter addresses, with an average airdrop income of $9,384 per address and a median airdrop income of $6,497. As for advanced airdrop hunters, we found a total of 932 addresses, with an average airdrop income of $18,935 per address and a median airdrop income of $14,288 per address. Judging from the average and median income, the term "advanced" does fit advanced airdrop hunters.
X-explore address tag analysis
In order to better reveal the characteristics of airdrop hunter addresses, we combined X-explore's proprietary on-chain tag system to conduct an in-depth analysis of the above addresses in terms of behavior, assets, activity, trading profitability, etc. We found that both standard airdrop hunters and advanced airdrop hunters have far more trading volumes on decentralized exchanges (DEX) and non-fungible tokens (NFT) than ordinary users.
Median DEX Trader: Top 10% of users by DEX trading volume
Median NFT Trader: Top 10% of users by NFT trading volume
Heavy Dex Trader: Top 1% of users in terms of DEX trading volume or number of transactions
NFT heavy traders: Users ranked in the top 2.5% in terms of NFT trading volume or number of transactions
These data show that airdrop hunters are more active in the cryptocurrency market than ordinary users, showing a higher enthusiasm for digital asset trading, especially DEX and NFT trading.
Initial active time of airdrop hunters on Ethereum chain
Combining the airdrop time of on-chain projects and the earliest active time of airdrop hunters on Ethereum, we found that most airdrop hunters are actually early users of Ethereum. At the time of Uniswap airdrop (September 2020), more than half of the airdrop hunters had already started to be active on Ethereum. The earliest activity time distribution of advanced airdrop hunters is also significantly earlier than that of standard airdrop hunters.
Activity levels of airdrop hunters on the Ethereum chain
We randomly sampled user accounts created before June 2021, selected more than 30,000 addresses, and compared their activity levels with those of airdrop hunters. As shown in the figure, airdrop hunters are active users on Ethereum, with advanced airdrop hunters averaging more than 50 transactions per month on Ethereum, and standard airdrop hunters also averaging more than 21 transactions per month. In contrast, our randomly sampled addresses averaged only 0.16 transactions per month on Ethereum. These results further highlight the enthusiasm and activity of airdrop hunters in on-chain activities. They are significantly better than ordinary users in terms of the number of transactions.
The behavior of airdrop hunters after the project airdrop
When tracking the activities of airdrop recipients (including ordinary users and airdrop hunters) after the five project airdrops, we found that the activity of all users tended to decrease after the project airdrops, especially ordinary users. At any given time, airdrop hunters were always more active than ordinary users.
However, Optimism is an exception: before the Optimism airdrop, the activity of ordinary users on the OP chain had actually surpassed that of premium airdrop hunters. However, after the Optimism airdrop, the activity of ordinary users continued to decline. On the contrary, the activity of premium airdrop hunters on the OP chain showed an upward trend after receiving the airdrop, and one month after the airdrop, their activity exceeded that of ordinary users. Through in-depth analysis, we found that this was mainly caused by the OP airdrop rules taking into account the activity of addresses on Ethereum. The results show that many previously inactive premium airdrop hunters began to take interest in OP after receiving the airdrop and began to actively interact with different projects on the OP chain.
Summarize
After sampling and analyzing the detailed on-chain behaviors of multiple airdrop hunter addresses, we found that the above analysis was further corroborated. The on-chain activity characteristics of airdrop hunters can be summarized as follows:
Most airdrop hunters are keen on DEX or NFT trading.
Airdrop hunters mainly consist of early users.
The activity of airdrop hunters is significantly higher than that of ordinary users.
Well-designed airdrop rules can have a positive impact on airdrop hunters.
What is the "next target" of the airdrop hunter?
After learning a little about the airdrop hunters, what is their "next target"? Which projects are they optimistic about? To answer this question, we studied the projects they participated in and their behavior patterns when interacting with the projects through on-chain data. While helping readers understand which on-chain projects are worth interacting with, we further revealed the methods by which airdrop hunters interact with these projects. It is worth mentioning that we have included these airdrop hunters in our monitoring system. In the future, X-explore will continue to pay attention to the latest developments of these airdrop hunters and bring more valuable analysis to readers.
We divide the projects favored by airdrop hunters into several tracks, sort each track by the participation rate of senior airdrop hunters, and filter out projects with a participation rate of more than 25%. If a project has multiple smart contracts, we will choose the one with the highest participation rate. The following are the tracks and project categories:
DeFi：Uniswap、SushiSwap、0x、MetaMask Swap、Balancer、1inch、Paraswap、Aave、Rarible、InstaDApp、dydx、Compound
NFT：Opensea、Blur、LooksRare、X2Y2、Foundation
Layer 2 solutions and cross-chain protocols: Arbitrum, Polygon, ZkSync lite, Optimism, HOP, ZkSync Era, Starknet
Decentralized Applications (DApps): DeBank
The bold, red-circled projects have not yet conducted an airdrop and have not issued tokens. We will take a closer look at the behavior of airdrop hunters on these projects.
DeFi track: MetaMask, transaction routing
After our analysis, the total trading volume of airdrop hunters on Metamask was $191,438,051, and the median trading volume of each airdrop hunter was $1,255. In addition, we removed airdrop hunters from all 1,811,782 Metamask Swap users and sampled the same number of other Metamask users from these 1,776,303 addresses. We found that their total trading volume on Metamask was $205,673,503, and the median trading volume was $474. Although the total trading volume is not very different, the median shows that the trading volume between airdrop hunters is more evenly distributed, and most of them have a trading volume of more than $1,000. The following is the trading pair information of airdrop hunters and other users:
We found that airdrop hunters have very similar preferences for trading pairs on Metamask Swap and Uniswap. Compared with ordinary users, airdrop hunters are more inclined to trade stablecoins and more mainstream cryptocurrencies: USDC, USDT, WETH, DAI, WBTC, etc. These stablecoins and mainstream cryptocurrencies have high liquidity and relatively stable prices, which reduces trading risks. In addition, stablecoins and mainstream cryptocurrencies are also easier to transfer and trade across platforms, enhancing the flexibility of funds. This shows that while airdrop hunters are pursuing returns, they also pay attention to risk control and flexible use of funds.
NFT track: Foundation
We randomly sampled three airdrop hunters who had participated in the Foundation and found that their interactions with the Foundation were not frequent. Although two airdrop hunters actually purchased NFTs, most of the interactions were bidding on NFTs.
Blur's airdrop rules can give us some inspiration. Although some people have never purchased NFTs, they can get considerable airdrop income just by exchanging coins and bidding. So when interacting with the project, we can try out the different functions of the project, which may bring unexpected benefits.
Layer 2 赛道：zkSync lite、zkSync Era、Starknet
zkSync (lite): We randomly selected 4 airdrop hunters that have been bridged to zkSync lite. Next, we will guide you through the behavior patterns of these airdrop hunters on zkSync through screenshots and explanations. If you want to understand the full behavior of the airdrop hunters, please refer to the link we attached.
Airdrop Hunter 1:
The first transaction of the first airdrop hunter occurred on November 1, 2021, when he transferred an amount from another address. It is worth noting that the interval between his subsequent two swap transactions was only 15 seconds. He first swapped ETH for USDT, and then swapped USDT back to ETH. This rapid and continuous trading behavior looks like an attempt to increase his activity on zkSync.
We omitted several cross-chain and address transfer operations in the middle. Airdrop Hunter 1 performed a similar transaction again 8 months ago, on October 20, 2022. This time, the stablecoin switched from USDT to USDC with an interval of about 30 seconds.
Two months ago, the address performed a series of similar transactions (39 transactions in total), with each transaction approximately 20 seconds apart.
Drop Hunter 2:
The second airdrop hunter's behavior was relatively simple. He bridged from the mainnet on November 10, 2021, and made his first transaction (exchanging ETH for USDC) three months ago. Then, the address had another transaction bridged from the mainnet, and there have been no other transactions since then.
Airdrop Hunter 3:
The third airdrop hunter's behavior on zkSync lite is very similar to the first airdrop hunter. They all bridged from the mainnet to zkSync at the end of 2021, then used zkSync's Swap function to convert ETH to stablecoins, and then exchanged the stablecoins back to ETH (ETH<->USDT). Moreover, they all made multiple transactions with a time interval of about 20 seconds. This may indicate that they are trying to increase activity by trading frequently.
Ignoring several scattered transactions in the middle, Hunter 3 performed a similar set of operations on May 25, 2022, with a transaction time interval of about 20 seconds.
Drop Hunter 4:
After bridging to zkSync lite, Hunter 4 made some transactions and then bridged again after a while. This behavior pattern may mean that they are trying to maintain a certain level of activity on zkSync and transfer and allocate funds when needed.
zkSync Era: In addition to zkSync lite, many airdrop hunters also choose to interact on the zkSync Era mainnet through cross-chain transactions. It is worth noting that in the first two days of the launch of the zkSync Era mainnet, a large number of airdrop hunters began to interact, showing their high interest and active participation in the zkSync Era project.
Airdrop Hunter 1:
Airdrop Hunter 1 exhibits almost identical behavior patterns on zkSync lite and zkSync Era. After zkSync Era went live on March 24, 2023, Airdrop Hunter 1 immediately bridged to zkSync Era the next day, showing a high interest and quick response to this new project. He then used the SyncSwap contract to perform a token swap operation.
Airdrop Hunter 1 performed similar trading behavior again 7 days after the initial interaction (April 2, 2023) to increase activity. This timing is very clever and seems to increase the activity level of the address in different weeks.
The last operation of Airdrop Hunter 1 on zkSync Era occurred a month ago (May 19, 2023), and this operation still involved the use of SyncSwap to complete the exchange between ETH and USDC.
Drop Hunter 2:
Like Airdrop Hunter 1, Airdrop Hunter 2 bridged zkSync Era on the day the zkSync Era mainnet was launched, which shows its high attention and activity on the project. Many of his transactions on zkSync Era were conducted through the Mute project. Unlike Airdrop Hunter 1, which exchanged between cryptocurrencies, Airdrop Hunter 2 exchanged ETH to ETH through contracts. This method can pay lower fees and avoid the risk of price fluctuations, while leaving active traces on zkSync.
Airdrop Hunter 3:
AirDropHunter 3 was bridged to zkSync Era on the same day (March 25, 2023) as AirDropHunter 1, and its on-chain operations are very similar to AirDropHunter 1. The only difference is that AirDropHunter 3 uses SpaceFi to exchange ETH and USDC.
A week after the first interaction (April 3, 2023), Airdrop Hunter 3 operated on zkSync Era again, using SyncSwap instead of SpaceFi. It can be seen that while increasing his activity, he also participated in multiple projects within the zkSync Era ecosystem.
Airdrop Hunter 3 continued to carry out transfers and other activities, and also participated in the iZUMi project, transferring ETH to ETH. It is worth noting that on May 15, 2023, there were multiple transfer records from this address.
StarkNet: Since there are fewer airdrop hunters bridged to Starknet, and the transaction behavior patterns of airdrop hunters are very similar to zkSync, we selected a representative address for analysis and illustration.
Airdrop Hunter:
About two months ago (April 12, 2023), the airdrop hunter crossed over to Starknet and conducted trades between ETH and USDC using the myswap project on Starknet that same day.
On Starknet, he also minted some NFTs.
25 days ago (June 1, 2023), he again traded between ETH and USDT through myswap.
Dapp track: DeBank
DeBank is a decentralized finance (DeFi) data analysis and asset management platform that provides users with a comprehensive view of investments and debts across different DeFi projects. It provides real-time project data, transaction records, and risk assessments to help users make informed investment decisions.
Recently, DeBank has been expanding its DeFi services to include trading features. The community is eagerly awaiting DeBank's airdrop. However, unlike community members who use DeBank according to the airdrop tutorial, most airdrop hunters simply register with DeBank. They do not use DeBank's Swap feature as recommended in the airdrop tutorial. Below, we give an example of how airdrop hunters interact with DeBank:
Judging from the behavior of these high-quality airdrop hunters, they seem to be more like registering with DeBank to enable its analysis function rather than using DeBank’s Swap function to increase their chances of potential airdrops.
Summarize
By conducting an in-depth analysis of the airdrop projects that on-chain airdrop hunters choose to interact with, we identified the key drivers of their choices:
Industry influence: Most air hunters tend to choose projects with wide influence and reputation in their fields. With the exception of DeBank, these projects have more than an astonishing 700,000 contract interactions on Ethereum.
Preference for Layer 2 Solutions: Airdrop hunters clearly prefer Layer 2 projects such as Arbitrum, zkSync lite, and zkSync Era. Layer 2 solutions offer faster transaction confirmation times and lower transaction fees, which is obviously very important for airdrop hunters who frequently participate in DeFi and NFT projects.
Through in-depth analysis of X-explore, we found that while airdrop hunters on Arbitrum and Optimism showed high-quality interactive behavior, on zkSync and Starknet, they seemed to artificially increase transaction volume and activity. This is closely related to the integrity of the on-chain ecosystem. Optimism and Arbitrum had some development and sedimentation time before the airdrop announcement, while zkSync released airdrop information before the launch of the Era mainnet. These findings forced the project team to rethink: What is the real meaning of airdrops? How to identify truly valuable users when formulating airdrop rules, rather than those who only take advantage of airdrops and engage in meaningless interactions?
Opinions on Airdrop Hunter
Airdrop hunters are mainly real high-quality users: they actively participate in various blockchain projects, engage in cross-chain transactions, and maintain consistent activity on multiple platforms. Despite the heated discussion about "Sybil addresses", we did not find obvious "free-riding" behavior among airdrop hunters. On the contrary, their behavior patterns reflect their deep involvement in the project and their enthusiasm for the blockchain world, not just for short-term airdrop gains.
When setting airdrop rules, you can refer to successful examples: When analyzing the traces of airdrop hunters on Optimism, we found that many high-quality airdrop hunters received a large number of OP airdrops due to their activeness on Ethereum and eventually became loyal users of the OP chain. Therefore, when formulating airdrop rules, project parties can consider the behavior of airdrop hunters to ensure that airdrops are distributed more effectively to such high-quality users. This also helps project parties use airdrops as an incentive mechanism to increase project participation and user loyalty.
A good airdrop needs to meet two core conditions: reasonable airdrop rule design and a sound ecosystem. With well-designed airdrop rules and a strong ecosystem, we have witnessed how high-quality users on Arbitrum/Optimism continue to remain active. However, if airdrop information is released in a hurry before the ecosystem is perfected, it may lead to the emergence of superficial prosperity. Even high-quality airdrop hunters may conduct "deliberate boosting activities" on zkSync/Starknet.