An airdrop is an unsolicited distribution of a cryptocurrency token or coin, usually for free, to numerous wallet addresses. Airdrops are often associated with the launch of a new cryptocurrency or a DeFi protocol, primarily as a way of gaining attention and new followers, resulting in a larger user base and a wider disbursement of coins. Airdrops have been a more important part of ICOs since crypto entrepreneurs have started doing private sales instead of public offerings to raise initial capital.
An airdrop is a marketing strategy that involves sending coins/tokens to the wallets of users for the awareness/promotion of new coins/tokens.
A smaller amount of these coins/tokens is sent to the wallets of active users as a return of some minor interaction with the blockchain.
We may see multiple types of airdrops. Not all the airdrops are necessarily legit. There are many fake/scam airdrops too. One should always do research before jumping into an airdrop.
Fake Crypto Airdrop
We saw many fake airdrops where a random group of people creates a bunch of fake social networks including a fake website, fake twitter account, fake telegram group, fake telegram channel and a fake telegram bot. They ask people to follow them on twitter, retweet a tweet, join a telegram group and channel. and lastly, they will ask you to send some $ to claim the airdrop. Such type of airdrops turns out to be a fake airdrop.
Legit Crypto Airdrops
Legit airdrops are always announced on the official website of the project, which you can always find on coinmarketcap or coingecko. While there are other ways of knowing about upcoming airdrops
The airdrops, deployed by exchanges are legit. Mentioning an example, in recent times, we saw XYM (Symbol) token’s airdrop was distributed by Binance exchange, to the users already holding 100 or more XEM (Nem) tokens. Some time legit airdrops are not officially announced but are rumoured to happen and eventually at the 11th hour peoplpe who have interacted with the blockchain get rewarded, $ARB,$UNI etc are such projects while $SUI is one of such projects which is expected to give an airdrop