Airdrop

An airdrop is a distribution of free tokens to cryptocurrency wallet addresses, typically used by projects to reward early users, decentralize ownership, or market a launch. Instead of selling tokens, the project sends them directly — or lets eligible users claim them — based on criteria such as having used the protocol before a snapshot date, holding a particular asset, or completing specified actions.

The landmark example is Uniswap's 2020 airdrop: the decentralized exchange gave 400 UNI tokens to every address that had ever used the protocol, a distribution worth over a thousand dollars per user at launch and considerably more at later prices. Since then, airdrops have become a standard launch strategy, and "airdrop farming" emerged — users deliberately interacting with new protocols hoping to qualify for future distributions. Projects have responded with more sophisticated criteria to filter out farmers running thousands of wallets.

A common misconception is that everything called an airdrop is free money; the term is heavily exploited by scammers, and unsolicited tokens appearing in your wallet, or websites urging you to "claim" an airdrop by connecting your wallet and signing a transaction, are frequently traps designed to drain funds. Legitimate airdrops never require you to send crypto first or reveal a seed phrase. Airdropped tokens may also be taxable as income in many jurisdictions at their value on receipt, a detail that has surprised recipients when large distributions later fell in price.