The average income of a standard airdrops hunter per address was $9,384 (median $6,497). For the premium segment, the corresponding figures were $18,935 and $14,288, according to a joint study by X-explore and journalist Colin Wu.
Research on “Airdrop Experts” by X-explore
Found 34,547 Standard Airdrop Hunter addresses, with per address of $9,384 and a median airdrop income per address of $6,497; 932 addresses of Premium Airdrop Hunters, per address of $18,935.
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— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 26, 2023
Experts noted that after the Uniswap airdrop in 2020, the strategy of rewarding early users with tokens gained popularity in the Web3 industry.
However the practice of free distribution of assets led to the emergence of a category of ‘drop hunters’. According to researchers, up to 20% of the volume of the Arbitrum airdrop in March was claimed by so-called ‘free riders’, using the Sybil attack.
Experts attempted to profile these ‘drop hunters’ and forecast what their future ‘targets’ would be. The researchers analyzed five airdrops with more than 100,000 participating addresses and distributions exceeding $140 million each. The projects involved were Uniswap, ENS, Optimism, Blur and Arbitrum.
Analysts categorized addresses that participated in three of the five airdrops as ‘standard’ hunters (34,547 addresses). The ‘premium’ group took part in all five airdrops and received tokens. The latter comprised 932 addresses.
Researchers noted that, in fact, most drop hunters are early Ethereum users. They exhibit much greater activity on NFT platforms and DEX, trading, and maintain engagement in projects after receiving tokens.
For example, more than 95% of addresses in the premium group are among the top 10% by trading volume on decentralized exchanges. For NFT marketplaces, this figure stands at 68%.
In the view of the experts, given the identified features, projects may modify airdrop rules to have a ‘positive impact on hunters’.
Regarding their likely future targets, researchers identified activity of tracked addresses in the following projects across separate domains:
- DeFi: Uniswap, SushiSwap, 0x, MetaMask Swap, Balancer, 1inch, Paraswap, Aave, Rarible, InstaDApp, dYdX, Compound;
- NFT: OpenSea, Blur, LooksRare, X2Y2, Foundation;
- L2 solutions and cross-chain protocols: Arbitrum, Polygon, ZkSync Lite, Optimism, HOP, ZkSync Era, Starknet;
- dapps: DeBank.
In most cases, drop hunters periodically perform transactions of little economic significance.
ForkLog reported on two L2 protocols — Arbitrum Nova and zkSync, where token airdrops are likely.