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Airdrops: what they are and how to use them

February 6, 2024

As exciting and rewarding as it is to join the crypto world nowadays, it can be a challenging and even overwhelming thing to do. There is a lot of learning you will need to do in order to become a master of trading, owning, and making profits off crypto. From joining airdrops to owning a varied portfolio and using crypto exchanges, your journey is going to require some time and dedication.

Luckily for you, we are sharing our knowledge with anyone who is interested in becoming a crypto master. Our experience has taught us that the best way for a novice to start is by taking advantage of airdrops. 

What is an airdrop and how does it work?

In order to be able to take full advantage of their benefits, you should first have a good understanding of what airdrops are and how they work. Airdrops are defined as a marketing strategy used by crypto startups to raise awareness about their projects by offering a certain number of coins or tokens for free to selected wallets.

How they work is generally quite simple. When a new crypto project is launched, it needs to attract some public attention in order to gain some momentum. The best way to do that is to organize an airdrop on one of the dedicated websites we will be listing below

Users who want to gain some free coins or tokens from this project are usually going to be required to follow a couple of steps in order to be eligible for the airdrop. While things differ slightly from one crypto airdrop to another, these are the most common conditions:

  • Subscribe to the project’s email newsletter

  • Follow a dedicated Twitter page

  • Join the dedicated Telegram group

  • Follow the project on different social media platforms

This way, everybody wins: you earn some free crypto coins that can end up being worth quite a lot of money in the future and the business gets to present its project and gather an army of followers who can later become real investors. 

What are the crypto benefits of an airdrop?

Obviously, earning some free crypto comes with a series of benefits you can enjoy. Here are some of the most important ones.

You get to see how a coin evolves before investing money of your own

They say you should only invest in crypto that you can afford to lose without batting an eye. It’s a volatile market and there are many risks involved when you start investing your hard-earned money. Airdrops give you a chance to gather some coins without putting any of your own funds at stake. And yes, they might be worth close to nothing today, but don’t you wish you could have earned some free Bitcoin in 2009? 

They are a safe way to become a crypto owner

Getting started with crypto investments, whether that means becoming a day trader or a crypto hodler can be quite risky. Joining airdrops and earning coins or tokens for free is probably the safest way for you to get started. 

You could find some gems

Granted, not all the newly-launched crypto projects are going to be the next Ethereum. Some may have no real use or may remain worthless forever. But out of the multitude of crypto airdrops available, there is a real chance for you to find some real gems. Earning some free coins today can eventually lead to you becoming quite profitable if you hold on to them and their value increases considerably over the years.

Back in 2019 for example, Elrond created an airdrop where they gave away 10,000,000 ERD, their initial token that later became EGLD. At the time, Elrond was just a startup and their tokens had no real value. Just over a year later, 1 EGLD was worth more than 500$. Those who claimed the airdrop rewards and kept their coins ended up winning thousands. 

You get them early

One of the most important benefits of crypto airdrops is the fact that you earn your coins at the very beginning of their existence. Airdrops never happen for well-established cryptocurrencies. The fear of missing out that is guiding so many decisions in the crypto world is not a factor when it comes to airdrops. You will never have to worry that you missed your chance of acquiring some coins at their lowest price. You are getting them for free.

What are the risks of an airdrop? 

Even though earning free coins sounds like a pretty safe thing, there are some potential risks you should be aware of.

Scams

Sadly, because of the lack of regulations in the crypto world, your chances of running into some scams are quite high. Some airdrops are created with the sole purpose of getting your personal information or access to your crypto wallet so you can later be tempted to join some rather odd and dangerous communities or even have your funds stolen. Some people really are out to get you and you should always make sure to avoid things that sound too good to be true.

One of the most common scams involves NFT airdrops, generally focusing on Bored Ape NFTs. The airdrop claims to offer a free Bored Ape NFT to those who register and all users are required to connect their wallets in order to be eligible. The registration generates an error and users are asked to provide their login information or security phrases for manual registration. Their security phrases are stolen and their crypto wallets are emptied. 

Worthless coins

Many of the coins you are going to acquire through airdrops are going to remain worthless, that’s a fact. The crypto universe has come to the point where the competition between projects is fierce and few of the startups are actually going to make it. You risk finding the results of your airdrop hunt to be quite disappointing. 

Sharing personal data

Your personal information is worth a lot more than you might think. You may think you’re somewhat insignificant in the great scheme of things, but that is not true. Your personal data can be used in a number of ways and it can generate serious profits for those who use it without your permission or knowledge.

Keeping your personal information safe these days can be a challenge. Sharing an email address and perhaps your name might be fine, but you should never, under any circumstances, share any of your login data from your crypto wallets. All crypto wallets offer the option to log in to different platforms or register to different websites through the use of QR codes or different methods. If a website is asking you to provide your login information manually, something is wrong and you should close that website immediately.

Where to find the best airdrops?

There are several websites dedicated to airdrops and they are generally the safest choice. The offers that are displayed on these websites go through a verification process and they are relatively safe to join. 

Our experience has taught us that these are the websites where you will be able to find the most profitable airdrops:

Check them out and see what projects seem to have the most potential.

How can you take advantage of airdrops?

The process of taking advantage of airdrops and earning free cryptos is generally quite simple. Here is our step-by-step guide to using airdrops.

  1. Visit one or more of the websites on the list above

  1. Check the offers available. You will see that some of the airdrops also have an estimated value in fiat currency displayed. Select the ones that seem to be most profitable. You can even join waiting lists or simply check the upcoming airdrops to make sure you don’t miss out on any of them. 

  1. Do some research. Try to find out some information from other sources about the projects that seem interesting. Check forums, see what others think about the coins, and see the project’s whitepaper to find out what their plans for the future are.

There are also quite a lot of subreddits you could join and use as a discussion board. Ask questions, and see what more experienced crypto users think about the projects you are interested in. Crypto communities exist on pretty much any social media platform you can think of and the members are usually very helpful. Crypto exchanges like Binance or KuCoin also have their own forums where you can get quite a lot of valuable information.

  1. Check the airdrop conditions. Each airdrop is going to require you to complete several actions before you actually receive your coins or crypto tokens. 

  1. Complete the actions and claim your free crypto. If you’re satisfied with the things you learned about the crypto projects and you are ok with completing the required actions, do what you’re supposed to do and claim your tokens. Whether you want to keep them, sell them, or even use them in a crypto casino, it’s entirely up to you.

Final thoughts on crypto airdrops

Airdrops are an amazing opportunity both for novices and experienced members of the crypto community. If you pay attention to the projects and only join airdrops from trustworthy sources, there is a lot for you to gain at relatively low risks.