1. Why are airdrops always criticized, and where is the problem?
In recent days, Redstone and Nillion have been harshly criticized, mainly due to the following issues:
——Lack of transparency in rules, suspected 'insider trading' operations: For instance, Redstone did not disclose airdrop rules, starting with fewer than 4,000 airdrop addresses, and later changed the rules due to pressure from Binance, but the total airdrop amount remained very small; Nillion initially had zero airdrops for staking and running nodes, with many tokens’ destinations unclear, leading to strong community suspicions of insider trading.
——Low returns and high participation costs: A large number of users invest time and resources but receive meager returns, or even nothing, making it common to lose out.
——Vague standards for community contributors exacerbate community division. For example, Nillion's extreme filtering led to community splits. Members in DC roles and those staking + running nodes had heated arguments about 'what constitutes a true contributor.'
2. Analysis of Controversy Roots
——Market Pressure: Insufficient market liquidity leads project parties to reduce airdrops to control selling pressure.
——Increased Internal Competition: The surge of exploitative users has led project parties to set high thresholds for selecting 'high-quality' users, but they often overlook regular participants.
——Power Imbalance: The project party controls the rule-making power, while the community lacks countermeasures and is easily divided due to uneven interests.
——Excessively high proportion of low-quality users: The project party is concerned about selling pressure post-airdrop, as many low-quality accounts are discarded.
2. Deep Thinking Before Discussing Solutions
Before discussing solutions, two core issues are worth deep consideration:
Question 1: How does the project party accurately define 'true community contributors'?
Currently, the proportion of exploitative low-quality users is too high, and studios operating in bulk only create sell pressure. Project parties are concerned about the selling pressure after airdrops, leading to an increasing number of project parties choosing to give airdrops to true community contributors. However, there is a myriad of standards for measuring community contributions, leading to ongoing disputes and even community division. So, what constitutes true community contribution?
Taking Nillion as an example, the standards set before its airdrop filled the community with expectations. Nillion emphasized 'recognizing true contributions rather than opportunistic participation' in its airdrop strategy, filtering users who substantially drive the project through a multi-dimensional evaluation system. According to an article by Nillion's Chief Marketing Officer Charlie Rogers, the defined 'true community contributions' include:
——Actual promotion of ecological development.
Nillion ties community contributions to users' behaviors that create 'positive value' for the project, such as long-term participation in community building (e.g., holding Discord roles), writing content to promote the project, participating in node operations, etc. These actions directly aid ecological expansion and technical verification.
——Long-term participation rather than short-term speculation.
Nillion opposes 'bot' behaviors (such as using multiple wallets to claim rewards) and values sustained investment, such as providing feedback or assisting in problem-solving rather than mechanical participation.
——Comprehensive consideration of diverse contributions.
Nillion's distribution matrix covers three major categories: community activity, social contribution, and technical support, attempting to comprehensively measure the users' overall impact.
This standard is quite good, but unfortunately, Nillion undermined itself during execution, with only about 1% of the total amount allocated to airdrops (7.5% of 1 billion tokens released, with less than 1% going to stakers and node users), triggering strong discontent within the community. Many questioned the remaining tokens' flow towards 'insider trading'.
In summary, true community contributors are those who genuinely recognize the project's value, are willing to invest long-term, and make tangible contributions to the project's development. They are the foundation of the project and the key force for its sustainable development.
Regarding community contributions, different project standards must fit their specific situations, such as technical projects focusing on developers, node projects valuing node users, and community-driven projects emphasizing community contributions...
Question 2: How can the community reverse its disadvantaged position?
1. Reasons for Community Weakness:
——Power Imbalance: The project party has capital, is the rule-maker for airdrops, and is the dominant side. The community is undoubtedly the weaker side, and the uneven distribution of airdrop benefits can easily lead to division, making it difficult to unify voices. Even if the community has good cohesion, the project party can suppress community voices through measures like banning community members or bribing key opinion leaders, while the community lacks effective countermeasures.
——Severe internal competition for exploitative practices. 'If you don't exploit, others will,' gives project parties the audacity to act recklessly.
——Differences in project dependencies. Financing projects (like Redstone) have low reliance on the community, and testnet data is optional; growth-oriented projects (like Movement) need community support. This leads to different attitudes from project parties towards the community.
2. Community Response Strategies
Currently, the community, aside from relying on key opinion leaders to voice concerns, lacks mature countermeasures, with numerous rights protection groups as evidence. However, some ideas may be worth trying: unite in the form of a DAO, transform into a service provider for project parties (such as market makers), or pool funds to participate in early alpha investments to enhance influence. For example, YGG in the gaming track is a successful case.
3. How to Break the Deadlock?
1. Project Parties: Design a more reasonable airdrop mechanism.
Good airdrops are designed to attract new users, reward early users, and retain more users, while focusing on the economic flywheel of the project and ecosystem for growth. Here are some suggestions:
——Transparency: Clearly define token distribution and flow, avoiding suspicions of insider trading.
——Consistency in words and actions: Promises made in the early stages must be fulfilled. Avoid burning bridges and betraying users to gain the community's trust and support. Nillion serves as a cautionary tale.
——Gradual Release: Through multiple rounds of airdrops, avoid short-term sell-offs, encourage users to interact continuously, and contribute long-term. For example, OP continuously rewards long-term contributors through multiple airdrop rounds.
——Tiered Incentives: Low-threshold airdrops cover a broad user base, enhancing the sense of participation. Rewards high-quality users based on on-chain contributions (such as staking, interactions) to balance fairness and efficiency.
——Dynamic Communication: Establish a community voting mechanism; adjustments to rules must have consensus support. Strengthen crisis management capabilities, quickly respond when controversies arise (e.g., Redstone added 2%), and avoid silence that exacerbates conflicts.
2. Exploitative Users: Optimize strategies to enhance returns.
Competition within the exploitative track is becoming increasingly severe, with the threshold for participating in quality projects rising. Exploitative strategies must be continuously optimized to achieve significant results.
——Enhance research and investment capabilities to find alpha opportunities.
Focus on the project's white paper, team background, funding situation, and roadmap to assess its long-term potential. Use tools like Dune Analytics to analyze on-chain data or RootData to analyze the latest funded projects, uncover alpha, and avoid low-value or purely exploitative projects.
——Gathering together for warmth, sharing resources and information, and uniting voices when facing 'exploitative' situations.
Limited personal energy is suitable for focusing on a single track, while collective wisdom can help identify high-potential airdrops from multiple dimensions and share the costs of trial and error. Moreover, when facing some exploitative projects, collective voices are more effective.
——Improve on-chain profiles to increase airdrop hit rates.
Many quality airdrops will distribute rewards based on users' on-chain behaviors (such as trading volume, held assets, governance participation), making it crucial to build a 'quality' on-chain identity.
Multi-chain layout (Ethereum, Solana, Sui, etc.), engaging in DeFi protocols (lending, liquidity pools), NFT trading, or DAO governance, leaving active footprints.
——Finding projects that align with oneself.
The Web3 ecosystem is vast, with airdrop projects being diverse. Choosing projects that align with one's interests and capabilities can make chasing airdrops more sustainable. Compatible projects can not only bring airdrop rewards but may also become entry points for deeper participation, or even turn into long-term investment opportunities, like the focus on the Sui chain ecology.
——Choosing the right direction is more important than effort. Choosing the right project direction is essential, and a focused approach on individual projects must also consider specific sub-directions. Chasing airdrops is not about blindly completing tasks; the chosen direction determines the ceiling of returns. Here, the direction has several meanings: one is the traditional sense of a major trend or hot track, and new narratives. For example, the narrative for 2025 might be AI + Web3, RWA. The other is unique angles within hot individual projects, such as equity NFTs, research articles, Twitter promotions...
——Choose projects with strong community reliance. Projects that do not rely on community profit, such as oracles or RWA, inherently possess high funding and strong backing; the community sees them more as creditors. Conversely, projects that grow with the community, such as Layer 1 and application infrastructure, often result in significant rewards.
4. Future Outlook for Airdrop Directions
——Pre-selection: No longer blindly pursuing data, starting to emphasize high-quality user selection, such as Monad airdropping to active on-chain addresses for testing; Succinct's testnet requires an invitation code to participate.
——Capital Dominance: VC investments or CEX listings have shifted focus from on-chain data to actual revenue capabilities, decreasing the data value of exploitative contributions. For example, CZ has repeatedly emphasized that Binance values long-term worth, preferring projects with stable revenue capabilities.
——Increasing Centralization Trends: Under industry standardization, capital's influence grows, and industry regulations are trending towards traditional finance, moving away from 'code is law'. With the entry of traditional capital like BlackRock and sovereign funds, an invisible web of capital has already spread, leading the crypto rules to trend towards traditional finance.
——Community Awakening: Faced with unfair and opaque airdrop rules, the community is thinking about countermeasures. United, they will surely find ways to communicate with capital.
Conclusion
The airdrop turmoil involving Redstone and Nillion reveals the importance of transparent rules, fair distribution, and communication. If future token issuance projects can learn from this, designing strategies centered around users will not only alleviate sell pressure but also consolidate community consensus. The transformation of airdrops and exploitative practices has begun, and project parties and communities should reduce competition and work together to embrace a future filled with both challenges and opportunities.
