What Are Airdrops and How Do You Participate In Them?

In today’s crypto world, using the internet to promote cryptocurrencies is generally called an “airdrop” in crypto slang.

In this guide, we will discuss what an airdrop is and how you can participate in it to earn money.

What is An Airdrop?

Airdrop, (aka airdropping), is simply the method of sharing coins (tokens) to several cryptocurrency wallet addresses which doesn’t cost the recipient addresses anything; as a participant in an airdrop, you can get free coins.

Airdropping is also a way for new crypto companies to promote their coins; this increases the popularity of the coin and encourages people to invest in it at that stage, increasing the chances of the coin entering the general coin market.

However, if you want to participate in an airdrop, there are certain tasks that you will need to complete before those free coins are rewarded to you. The most popular of the tasks that you will be asked to complete is to join a Telegram group or to promote the coin through your social media handles.

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See the current list of legit crypto airdrops that can give you free coins.

While you are required to perform this task, it’s not always necessary for you to spend a lot of time on it. Sometimes, as a participant in the airdrop, you may qualify to get some free coins through the airdrop if you already have some coins like BTC in your wallet.

As long as you are a participant in the airdrop, you will win some free coins as long as the company’s awareness creation is still ongoing.

The Major Reasons for An Airdrop

Almost every new cryptocurrency engages in an airdrop to ensure fast promotion and circulation of their coin. On the other hand, every company that owns coins has the intention of making a huge profit with them in the near future.

Below are the major reasons why so many cryptocurrency companies use airdrops.

To create awareness about their new coin:

At the time of writing, there are more than 6,000 coins in existence in the crypto space, according to Statista. With this high number of cryptocurrencies in circulation, it would require huge promotion (giving thousands of coins for free) for the new coin to gain popularity. Statistics recorded that over 95% of all new cryptocurrencies use airdropping as their major means of promoting the coin.

These free coins given to users through airdrops motivate them to explore and promote these new cryptocurrencies without being forced to do so.

To get people’s interest:

Whenever people hear that a new cryptocurrency is out, people tend to be interested in learning more about it.

Did you know that Bitcoin was once shared with thousands of people for free? Some even received over a thousand Bitcoin through the same promoting channel we call airdropping today.

As an alternative to getting coins:

As some countries have banned cryptocurrency trading, the airdrop method is now the easiest way of getting cryptocurrencies for people in those countries, as it helps those users to get coins even without paying.

To appreciate supporters:

Airdrops favour everyone that helped in promoting the new crypto that the company just launched.

With airdropping, both the company and the users that participate in the airdrop are compensated.

How to Participate in an Airdrop

Below are the key things you need before participating in airdrop:

1. A valid email address: This email must be valid and you must have access to it. To register for an airdrop, your phone number might not be required, however, you will need a valid email address which the company can use to contact you or verify your account.
2. A cryptocurrency wallet: When hustling for free coins, you need to have a wallet where those coins that you will be rewarded with will be sent to. We recommend that you create your wallet to ensure that the coins you are rewarded with are safe. The most popular tokens to give away are the ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. So, it might be a good idea to create an ether wallet for instant airdrops.
3. Active social media accounts: Most of these airdrops require you to use your social media accounts to promote the coin, as this is an easy way to spread awareness about the coin.

Types of Airdrops

There are several types of airdrops. They are:

Bounty Airdrop:

This type of airdrop requires users to perform some tasks which involve using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, etc. to promote and market the cryptocurrency.

Apart from this, they are also advised to utilize websites, forums, blogs to promote the cryptocurrency. Once this action has been completed, the user will be rewarded with some free coins or units.

Standard Airdrop:

This is the type of airdrop that rewards users with coins when they successfully register with the airdrop company’s website and subscribe to their updates.

Exclusive Airdrop:

These are airdrops that are managed and hosted by websites and social media. When you have registered with the site that offers this airdrop, or when you begin to follow their social media accounts, you will be regarded as part of those that are promoting the cryptocurrency. In turn, they will reward you with some free coins.

An example of a website that does this is airdrops.io– this website gives airdrop to users that sign up for their newsletter.

Pros of crypto airdrops

• You can use these airdrops to boost your crypto portfolio even when you don’t have money to purchase new cryptocurrencies.
• You can use the free coins to understand the crypto market at a low cost.
• You can easily trade with the free coins you got from airdrop once the coin is listed in a cryptocurrency exchange

Cons of Airdrop

• The coins you got from airdrop may not eventually be recognized in the coin market, which will make all your effort to get the coins useless
• Airdrops are quite time-consuming.
• You might have to spend some money to get more free coins, in the hopes that the coin will soon go viral in the coin market.

The Risks Involved in Airdrop

Although airdrops are very common in the crypto world today, they can be used to scam a lot of people, especially people with little or no experience of cryptocurrency.

If you want to participate in airdropping, you should stay away from those airdrops that ask you to send money to your account or maybe send some strict personal information.

In airdropping, there is a popular slang called “Dusting” — dusting is a type of airdrop scam that hackers use to scam people involved in the airdrop.

In dusting, hackers send a very small portion of the coin to thousands of wallets (people that are involved in the airdrop) and the owners of the wallet will not notice many changes to his wallet because the coin that entered was very small.

Now the hacker will link those wallet addresses to several companies as well as individuals; this is achieved when the hacker follows the transactions in the wallet and tracks all the transactions by the user.

The general purpose of this is to carry out direct cyber-attacks to the owners of the wallets in the meantime.