The nature of airdrops: scam, gift or gift?

ZK (ZKsync) and ZRO (LayerZero) token airdrops have come to an end amidst a lot of criticism and dissatisfaction. The Blast airdrop of "L2 Network's No. 1 High Interest Savings" is also on the way. As for "What exactly is an airdrop?" ” This soul torture once again aroused widespread market discussion. Odaily Planet Daily will summarize and analyze this article based on past industry views and recent key figures’ remarks for readers’ reference. Jupiter Lianchuang: Airdrop is a gift rather than a reward, a loyalty program, and a means of growth. At a time when discussions are rampant about whether ZK and ZRO are the "Endgame in the field of airdrops," Jupiter co-founder Meow posted on the social media platform today: “The airdrop is a gift. It’s not a reward, it’s not a loyalty program, it’s not a means of growth. It’s a gift. It’s that simple. If you ask what you get out of it, it’s not a gift anymore. The gift lost its meaning and failed to live up to the original sincerity. (Spanish)" Interestingly, Meow deleted the word "Adios (Spanish for goodbye)" in subsequent versions. I dropped it, maybe because I felt it was a bit of a misnomer, or maybe I felt that the attitude of "saying goodbye to users" expressed by this word was too decisive. But it can be seen that he regards airdrops as an intermediary carrier for friendly interaction between project parties and users - just like the "gifts" that a friend who comes to visit his home will bring. It would be nice to have some. But if not, you shouldn’t blame the project side for it.

LayerZero CEO: The first to donate before receiving the airdrop

As the headproject of the cross-chain interoperability protocol, LayerZero has previously had high hopes from the market, and its token airdrop expectations were once comparable to those of the former "L2" ZK (ZKsync), one of the "Four Kings", is comparable, but the attitude of project CEO Bryan Pellegrino (hereinafter referred to as Bryan) towards the token airdrop is obviously different from that of ZKsync's official account, which directly stated that "there will be no large-scale witchscreening" ” Completely different.

Previously, perhaps in order to "ensure that real users get the airdrops they deserve", LayerZero launched a vigorous "Witch HuntingMovement" on the People are in danger, but in the end, the single-digit and double-digit airdrop results for a single account disappointed many people - "I thought big was coming, but I didn't expect it was indeed big, but it was 'La It’s a big’, and it’s indeed the work of Stinky Penguin (username suffix of Bryan On June 20, regarding the need to donate 0.1 US dollars worth of tokens per single ZRO token before applying for the LayerZero airdrop, Bryan responded, “There is no mandatory donation. If you don’t want to donate, don’t apply for tokens. This is not you. What you have is something provided by others. "

Based on his previous actions and remarks, Bryan sees the token airdrop more as "a "charity" from the project to users, or even "a charity" from the project side. "Bribery", therefore, to a certain extent, users are necessary and obligated to contribute to the subsequent development of the project through donations." It must be said that now that token airdrops have entered the "mature stage of development", the unspoken rules of "collusion" between project parties and users regarding token airdrops have failed with LayerZero and Bryan, and both parties are no longer jointly supporting the project. The "comrades" in terms of valuation and market value have become "enemies" who hate each other.

Regarding LayerZero’s mandatory donation, Yearn

Core

developer banteg commented that this mandatory donation is more like a glorified ICO. At the same time, he also called for an end to bulk funding of the Protocol Guild, as it has been very successful in attracting funding and should find other smaller initiatives to support.

Uniswap founder: "Don't be stingy with token issuance" As an industry

pioneer

who launched the "token airdrop" track in September 2020, crypto giant and crypto giant, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams (Hayden for short) The views on token airdrops may be more in line with the expectations of most people in the cryptocurrency market. More importantly, this guy really combines knowledge with action - the previous Uniswap airdrop was almost unanimously praised by everyone in the market; UNI token Within three hours of going online, 13,000 users actively participated, and the gas fee was as high as US$650,000. The threshold is clear and relatively low, and it is mainly distributed to "historical liquidity providers, interactive users and SOCKS redeemers/holders and others; a single user address can receive 400 UNI. At that time, the token was worth US$1,344, and just a few months later, the value of this airdrop reached a maximum of nearly US$12,000. , can be called the real "big hair and simplicity".

UNI代幣分配圖值得注意的是，彼時Uniswap發放代幣空投有著複雜的內部和外部原因：內部是社區成員對代幣發行的不斷催促，外部則是面臨的激烈競爭——最直接的影響因素便是競爭對手SushiSwap透過代幣發行對其發動「吸血鬼攻擊」。根據當時的媒體報道，2020年9月7日到9日，Uniswap TVL在48小時內從17.2億美元跌至5.18億美元；儘管隨後在9月10日短暫升至10億美元以上，迅速恢復了市場領先地位，但競爭還是陷入白熱化。當時，以太坊聯合創始人V神也在FTX CEO評價SushiSwap事件推文中留言表達了自己的看法，他認為，Uniswap創始人Hayden Adams是優秀的行業參與者，該團隊付出了數年的努力，做出了正直的決定——當其他人都在盡可能快地ICO的時候，Uniswap卻並不急於發幣，但過去兩週它卻因此被攻擊。我看到Uniswap自推出以來一直在發展，並說Uniswap對社群不負責任不符合事實。可以說是直言站台並表達支持。而就在「積分制統治眾多加密項目」的今年5月，Hayden也針對代幣分配相關問題表達了自己的看法。除了旗幟鮮明地認為「要代幣而非積分」以外，最重要的一點是，他認為「不要吝嗇代幣發放」。他的原話是：「不要吝嗇－慷慨地贈送大量。如果專案創始人認為社群不值得獲得大量，請不要釋放代幣。」此外，他還提到：不要盲目追求Farmer數量；從第1天起，就要確保真實流動性；不要給有偏見的Farmer們提供過高代幣供應量；不要推銷代幣價格；保持簡單；在代幣決定中投入真正的思考和關懷。而早在2023年07月，Hayden就對外發言稱，希望看到更多的項目利用Crypto的「超能力」去顛覆主流的Web2App，並發現新的用例，而不是圍繞著現存的少數Web3用例（ AMM，借貸等）進行邊際改進，要對Web2發動吸血鬼攻擊，別不停地fork Uniswap。筆者認為，在Hayden的眼中，空投應該是一種應對市場競爭的手段，是一種能夠與社區產生更多聯繫的紐帶，是一種可以投入真正的思考和關懷的介質，是一種能夠向Web2發動「吸血鬼攻擊」的「超能力」，而不是摳摳搜搜的「積分的變種」。結論：空投的本質——另類的營銷費用投入在做過無數次交互卻沒有收到空投或者空投回報入不敷出的用戶看來，空投很多時候都是一場騙局——“我看重的是他們的代幣空投，他們看重的是我的本金和手續費」；在投資了眾多加密項目的VC、基金、投資人的眼中，空投是順理成章的「投資回報」——「我前期投入了那麼多資金和時間、精力，現在拿回一部分代幣回報，很合理吧？ 」而對部分認為「專案的成功主要歸功於專案方自己」的創始人、團隊成員來說，空投是對「積極配合工作的用戶們」的饋贈，是一份「你們該珍惜的禮物」，不說感激涕零，至少也該心懷感恩吧？但其實，在筆者看來，正如Web3領域或加密貨幣產業的主要產品就是Token（代幣）一樣，代幣空投其實就是一筆用於「種子用戶累積、對外宣傳推廣、產品品牌行銷」的另類投入。專案方既不應該過於慷慨，以至於將多數代幣籌碼分發到“擼毛黨”、“大刷子”、“集群女巫”手中；更不應該極端吝嗇，以至於真正陪伴項目走過從0到1甚至100的忠實用戶感到寒心，甚至「反目成仇」。合格的代幣空投就像是一場Marketing Campaign（行銷戰役）一樣，基於明確的目標並服務於專案的整體發展，經過縝密的思考和詳盡的規劃，透過步步為營的執行，最終實現代幣籌碼一定程度上的「去中心化發放」以及專案市場口碑、品牌形象的成功塑造。所以說，以後的專案方應該要達成共識：代幣空投是行銷的子命題，只有負面效果的空投不如不發。

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