Crypto Dictionary
Airdrop
Definition
A marketing strategy where tokens are sent to wallet addresses for free.
Deep Dive
An airdrop is a popular marketing and distribution strategy in the cryptocurrency space where new or existing tokens are sent directly to the public wallet addresses of selected individuals, typically for free. Projects often conduct airdrops to generate awareness, foster community engagement, reward early adopters, or distribute governance tokens to a broad user base. Participants usually need to meet specific criteria, such as holding a certain amount of another cryptocurrency, interacting with a particular DeFi protocol, or simply registering their interest.
Examples & Use Cases
- 1Uniswap's airdrop of UNI tokens to all past users of its decentralized exchange, rewarding early adopters and distributing governance rights.
- 2Arbitrum's ARB token airdrop to users who had bridged funds to its Layer 2 network and interacted with dApps on it, incentivizing ecosystem growth.
- 3A new NFT project sending free tokens to holders of specific blue-chip NFTs to build a community and cross-promote.
Related Terms
Initial Coin Offering (ICO)Token DistributionCommunity Building