Introduction
Recently, multiple testnets in the airdrop circle have seen very high activity levels, such as Monad Testnet addresses exceeding 240 million, set to become one of the largest testnet projects in history. The author recently discovered a super niche contract trading platform, Ostium, which has shown strong trading volume and transaction fee performance, making it worthwhile to ambush. This article will detail Ostium's project background and explain how to interact with its points system!
What is Ostium?
Ostium is a decentralized trading platform based on ETH L2 Arbitrum, focusing on bringing traditional assets onto the chain for trading, including futures, forex indices, etc., providing transparent and non-custodial perpetual contract trading services.
Ostium is one of the few contract-based exchanges involving traditional financial assets, allowing users to leverage stablecoins for long and short trades on the platform, offering more transparency, no trading restrictions, and immediate deposits and withdrawals compared to traditional financial platforms, aiming to fill the gap for traditional financial product assets on-chain.
Ostium Financing Team
Ostium was founded by Marco Antonio Ribeiro and Kaledora Kiernan Linn, both of whom have diverse backgrounds and studied economics at Harvard University, later serving as Chief Investment Officers at the globally renowned hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. They founded Ostium to address the friction costs between traditional finance and blockchain trading.
According to RootData, Ostium completed its first round of financing in October 2023, led by SIG, CoinBase Ventures, and Alliance DAO with $3.5 million, and Ostium has attracted the attention of many notable figures in the industry. This funding successfully allows Ostium to officially launch its mainnet and Ostium Protocol trading platform in 2024.
Ostium Data Performance
Ostium's official trading platform Ostium V2 was launched in March this year, reducing market quotes, transaction fees, and charges, and supports up to 200x leverage trading. The $USDC deposit APR on the Ostium platform even exceeds 15%, offering stronger competitiveness compared to competitors like dydx and Hyperliquid.
According to Dune data, Ostium's recent active user count is only about 3,000, but the trading volume has reached nearly $100 million, indicating that Ostium V2 and the newly launched points program have excellent appeal for the platform, making early ambush opportunities worthwhile.
Dune Data: https://dune.com/ostium_app/stats
Ostium Airdrop Points Program
Ostium launched the 'Ostium Points' incentive program on 3/31, aimed at motivating users to trade and provide liquidity on the platform. Ostium will initially distribute 10 million points to early users, allocating over 500,000 Ostium Points weekly based on activities, with weekly rankings settled every Sunday.
Although Ostium has no news of issuing tokens yet, the points program is seen as a pre-TGE airdrop event. Participating in trading and deposits can accumulate Ostium Points, and the interaction process will be explained below.
Ostium Interaction
1. Deposit Assets
First, connect your EVM wallet to Ostium and click the top right corner to fund your assets into Ostium.
2. Conduct Trading
As shown in the image below, the trading page allows for contract trading in Ostium, enabling futures, crypto, or forex market trades, with different minimum position limits for each market.
3. Deposit Earnings
Besides trading, users can also deposit $USDC in the Vault to earn yields. It's important to note that deposits require a withdrawal time of 9 days, mainly to earn points and the platform's liquidation fees and transaction fees.
Conclusion: Financing Lays the Foundation, Niche Airdrop Ambush
Ostium has laid a financing foundation with major players like CoinBase and Alliance DAO, with a diverse founding team demonstrating its potential in blockchain and traditional financial trading markets.
Ostium's recent data performance is strong, and with the launch of the points program, it has slowly attracted more users to participate in early airdrop interactions, providing opportunities to ambush the next major project.
Major Project Must Do: Noble
Noble is a Cosmos application blockchain specifically designed for native asset issuance, launched as a PoA chain in 2023, focusing on stablecoin and RWAs issuance, utilizing the IBC protocol for trustless asset transfers between blockchains, aiming to become the development center for digital assets within the Cosmos ecosystem.
Noble acts as an intermediary collaborating with stablecoin issuers. Its stablecoin design is linked to U.S. Treasury yields and utilizes CometBFT and IBC mechanisms, connecting with over 50 blockchains to maintain efficient and rapid block transactions.
Noble is participated by core contributors of Cosmos, with the main team founded by Jelena Djuric, John Letey, and Stefan, including collaboration with StrangeLove Labs. Noble has currently raised $18.3 million, led by major VCs such as Paradigm, Polychain, and Foresight Ventures, bolstering Noble's strength in stablecoin issuance and RWAs!
Since Noble went live, there have been multiple airdrop events, such as the two $FRNZ airdrops in 2023, during which hundreds of $FRNZ were airdropped to Cosmos Dex and $axlUSDC holders, which could be exchanged for Noble NFT whitelists, etc.
Noble started the Noble Points Vault in March this year, where you can earn points or high annual yields through deposits in Noble. Below is the complete interaction guide.
Noble Interaction Process
1. Connect Noble: https://points.noble.xyz
Connect your Cosmos wallet to Noble; EVM deposits will be launched in the future.
2. Deposit $USDC
In Noble, you can deposit $USDC to earn $USDN. As shown below, Noble has two pools available for deposits; the right one earns points for deposits, where every 100 $USDC earns 1 point daily, with bonuses for different staking durations; the left one purely earns up to 13.8% annual yield.
The Noble deposit pool is linked to U.S. Treasury yields, making it an almost risk-free safe yield, catering to users wanting to manage their finances and earn airdrops simultaneously.
3. Noble Ambassador: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/noble/jobs/4624954008
Currently, in addition to deposit interactions, Noble has also launched an ambassador program this week, which can be applied for through the above connection. This ambassador not only can receive future airdrops but also has a fixed salary reward!
Featured Interaction: Shogun
Shogun was founded in 2023 in the United States as an intent-centered DeFi protocol, focusing on maximizing trader extractable value through optimizing trading processes and cross-chain technologies, with the core goal of enhancing trader profitability through intent-driven strategies.
Shogun utilizes chain abstraction and liquidity fragmentation technologies to allow users to easily trade across chains, eliminating complicated cross-chain processes, optimizing experiences for both traders and liquidity providers on the platform. These innovations enable Shogun to stand out in the competitive DeFi space.
The Shogun team was founded by Rahui Patel and Brandon Comer, both veterans in the crypto space who were former analysts at Hartmann Capital. Shogun secured financing twice last year, first through an exclusive investment from YZi Labs in February, also incubated by YZi Labs; and in May it raised $6.9 million led by Polychain Capital, DAO5, and legendary trader Ansem. Currently, Shogun's valuation has exceeded $69 million, with a star-studded investment lineup and high market recognition!
Shogun has launched Galxe tasks, IQ trading points, and community contributions this month, aiming to attract early adopters and enhance ecosystem activity, with an official airdrop of 0.5% of the total $SHO allocated to this airdrop event. The following will explain the Shogun interaction process.
Shogun Interaction Process
1. Galxe Task: https://app.galxe.com/quest/shogun/GCXPCt1jcH?referral_code=GRFr2JbqJymuFTYhJtLFcKar0BBVHnfY_s9uJUeFtXYglz1
Shogun has launched social tasks on Galxe for the first time this month; simply completing simple follows can earn you 20 Galxe points, with more Shogun ecosystem-related tasks to be launched in the future.
2. Trade IQ Points
Shogun officially launched the IQ Points program this month. You can accumulate IQ points in Shogun through trading or other activities. Shogun initially operated as a Telegram Bot and has recently launched a trading webpage for users.
Inviting others to join also allows you to share their 10% points, and seasonal bonuses will be introduced later. Detailed IQ points information can be found in the official documentation.
Official Documentation
3. Community Contribution
In the Shogun Discord, community members are divided into levels as shown in the image below: Intern, Broker, Senior Broker, and Partner. Levels can be upgraded by participating in activities and community contributions in Discord.
Emerging Project Ambush: EdgexAI
In an era of rapid technological advancement, traditional cloud computing faces high latency, privacy risks, and elevated operational costs. EdgexAI is a decentralized AI infrastructure network aimed at reshaping the global cloud computing infrastructure through edge computing technology.
EdgexAI utilizes the characteristics of edge computing to push data processing closer to data sources, achieving more efficient and lower-latency computation, enhancing inference computing capabilities for AI applications in areas like automated manufacturing and autonomous driving.
The founders of EdgexAI are Davy and Harlan, with a core team composed of technical members from around the world, possessing rich experience in the Web3 and AI industries.
EdgexAI recently secured strategic round financing from top VC Ryze Labs, which has an impressive investment track record including Solana, Sui, FTX, and Wintermute. The co-investing venture capital institutions are also top-tier like Multicoin Capital and Spartan Group, providing EdgexAI with a strong endorsement.
EdgexAI Role Airdrop Event
EdgexAI announced its first financing on 4/17 and is currently holding early community promotion airdrop events, attracting users from platform X to promote EdgexAI and build an early community. The main airdrop activities are conducted in EdgexAI Discord, providing eligible users with Discord Role airdrops, as detailed below:
1. B-spark Role
For verified users (blue V) on X, after following EdgexAI's official X account, liking, retweeting, and replying to any tweet will allow you to fill out a form on Discord to obtain the B-spark Role. This will conclude on 4/26!
2. xplore Role
Limited role in EdgexAI Discord, rewarding members who have contributed significantly to the early community, such as writing articles and creating promotional graphics to promote EdgexAI. This role is similar to OG or early contributors and is limited to 888.
3. Ebaby Role
The early limit role in EdgexAI Discord is automatically obtained by members who upgrade to level 15 through chat contributions. This role is limited to 3,000.
Financing Potential Projects: Sidekick
Sidekick is an all-in-one live entertainment platform and recently ranked as one of the top projects on the Kaito leaderboard. Sidekick combines live streaming, SocialFi, and Web3 technology, allowing users to share entertainment or real-time trading market information within the platform, attracting millions to engage in live connections and discover emerging opportunities.
Sidekick has received investment from Binance Labs and was selected for the Binance Labs MVB (Most Valuable Builder) program's seventh phase, with other investment teams including Hashkey Capital and Foresight Ventures, totaling over ten million dollars in financing.
Sidekick was founded by the core team of the live streaming platform Trovolive, which is one of the largest live streaming platforms in Eastern Europe. Due to the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the project has gradually transformed into Web3 and rebranded as Sidekick. Trovolive has provided a large initial user base and technical support for Sidekick, establishing a good reputation and influence.
Sidekick combines real-time hotspots and social features of Web3, allowing users to pay directly for live game services, tips, and red envelopes using credit cards or crypto, enabling participation from both Web2 and Web3 users. Sidekick has also set up bots in Telegram and Discord, allowing existing communities to directly access Sidekick services and earn token rewards through task completion in the bot ecosystem.
Sidekick Interaction Guide: https://live.sidekick.fans/hall
After transforming, Sidekick focuses on 'real-time trading', allowing platform streamers to analyze market trends in real-time during live broadcasts, sharing Alpha hotspots, enabling users to follow trades in real-time, reducing the information asymmetry gap.
In Sidekick, users can apply to become streamers, users, or community partners, taking on multiple roles to earn revenue. The main profit methods are as follows:
Streamers: Apply to become a streamer through an invitation code. Streamers can earn a commission share from user trades, gifts from viewers, and earn a lot of points for future $SK airdrops.
Users: Follow trades to earn information arbitrage profits, airdrops distributed by streamers, and also earn points to receive $SK airdrops.
Community Partners: Communities like Discord and Telegram will integrate Sidekick bots, earning commissions and token airdrop shares based on traffic.
Airdrop Benefits Inquiry
1. $ZORA
https://basescan.org/address/0x0000000002ba96c69b95e32caab8fc38bab8b3f8#readContract
Zora Network was originally established in 2020 as a decentralized NFT marketplace protocol, and in 2023 launched an Ethereum-based L2 project aimed at reducing NFT minting and trading gas fees, providing innovative tools and NFT infrastructure for creators and collectors.
Zora Network has currently raised $60 million, led by Paradigm and CoinBase Ventures. Zora announced the launch of the $ZORA token on 4/21, with a total supply of 10 billion $ZORA, officially defined as a reward and incentive with no community governance or equity features.
10% of the total $ZORA supply will be used for retrospective airdrops to reward early users of the Zora Network, with two snapshots taken from January 2020 to March 3, 2025, and from March 3, 2025, to April 20, 2025. $ZORA will be released on 4/23 TGE along with the airdrop, and we are currently waiting for the official fix of the official airdrop data.
2. $EPT
https://foundation.balance.fun
Balance is a blockchain project focused on the Web3 gaming ecosystem, providing decentralized gaming experiences through its platform epal, introducing P2E mechanisms, and creating a player-driven gaming economic ecosystem that allows players to freely buy, sell, and trade game assets.
Balance is currently financing $30 million, mainly led by a16z and Galaxy Interactive, plus node sales totaling over $100 million. Currently, epal has accumulated over 3 million players.
Balance recently announced its token $EPT TGE on 4/21, with a total supply of 10 billion $EPT, of which 15% will be used for airdrops and community rewards targeting epal players, early active users of Balance, and Pioneer NFT holders, with 5% unlocking immediately at TGE.
3. $OOGA
https://app.oogabooga.io/airdrop
Ooga Booga is a native DeFi project within the Berachain ecosystem, focusing on aggregating liquidity within the Berachain ecosystem, integrating Dexes like Kodiak, Honeypot, and Izumi, automatically handling transactions through routers to enhance user trading experiences and reduce security risks.
Ooga Booga announced its airdrop event for its token $OOGA on 4/14, this time airdropping $3 million worth of $OOGA to ecosystem participants, with each user potentially receiving hundreds of dollars in airdrops, making it one of the major projects on the Bear Chain.
This report is for informational sharing only and does not constitute any form of investment advice or decision-making basis. The data, analyses, and opinions cited in the text are based on the author's research and public sources, which may have uncertainties or be subject to change at any time. Readers should exercise caution in making investment judgments based on their own circumstances and risk tolerance. For further guidance, it is recommended to seek professional advisor opinions.
