Free money? Sort of. Four crypto airdrop opportunities you might not want to miss

Coinhead Rob Badman
crypto airdrop

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There’s no such thing as a free lunch, right? Crypto airdrops aren’t free money, but they’re the closest thing to bagging some potentially valuable tokens for doing essentially not all that much (guided by the right knowhow).

In light of the recent Aptos airdrop we’re kicking ourselves for not taking part in, we thought it was high time we go over some of the most promising likely opportunities still yet to materialise. (And if you need a refresh on what airdrops actually are, here you go.)

Before we round up our list, though, just a quick word on the Aptos (APT) drop, as it’s a reminder of how powerful crypto airdrops can be.

Never mind the Aptos blockchain’s much publicised rocky entry into the market, if you’d signed up for the Aptos testnet – a process that essentially just required you to fill out a form – you could’ve made somewhere between US$1,500 and $6,000. That’s according to various Twitter-based sources such as the most-excellent airdrop guru olimpio.eth.

Coinhead has, admittedly, taken its eyes off the airdrop ball a bit recently. But we’ve given ourselves an uppercut and vow to regularly scan for similar lucrative possibilities of an air-droppable nature in future. Starting with the following:

 

Blur – NFT marketplace

As another anonymous Twitter user “@0xQuit” ponders below, “is airdrop szn back?” There certainly seems to be some buzz around this hypey crypto-marketing and decentralised token-distribution tactic at the moment.

Blur is near the top of that buzz. It’s yet another NFT marketplace, but it’s got some pretty impressive backing.

It aims to be majority-owned by its community but has also previously raised more than US$11 million in seed funding from VC firm Paradigm and well-known crypto angel investors including Cozomo Medici (aka Snoop Dogg), Punk 6529, Deeze and others.

The project (although not the BLUR token yet) launched last week with an airdrop of “care packages” which as yet contain an undisclosed amount of BLUR tokens per package.

Anyone who’s traded NFTs within the past six months might be eligible for the airdrop, which requires you to list an NFT on the Blur marketplace to complete the claim.

Even though you won’t be able to open the packages and access the tokens until January, you’d best get onto this one soon, as there are only about 9 days left to secure the drop at the time of writing.

The @0xQuit Twitter account (above) gives a clear breakdown of how to claim, as does olimpio.eth. Be sure to go to the official website address: blur.io/airdrop.

https://twitter.com/OllmpioCrypto/status/1583628228375109634

Note, this Blur airdrop is the first of several rounds. The second drop, set for November is rumoured to be much bigger than this one and will likely benefit NFT holders/traders who use Blur to list more or higher-value NFTs to earn greater airdrop rewards.

 

zkSnync – layer 2 scaler

This likely drop has been in the speculative air for quite some time now. In fact Apollo Capital’s David Angliss first alerted us to it back in early May this year.

zkSync is a “layer 2” blockchain-scaling technology that uses different technology from the likes of Optimism and Arbitrum – ZK rollups, aka zero-knowledge rollups.

“ZK rollups rely on mathematics to validate the rollup,” Angliss explained, “while Optimistic rollups rely on the observers of the layer 1 contracts to invalidate incorrect transactions.”

The upshot, Angliss told us, is that Optimistic rollups are “slightly slower and more expensive” than zkSync.

Several airdrop-watchers have noted that zkSync will be launching a token with the ticker ZKS and it could be set to hit the crypto market – perhaps either late this month or in November when the protocol launches its mainnet.

So how would you get the ZKS token potentially airdropped to your Ethereum wallet? As with most, if not all, of these sorts of opportunities, your best bet is to interact with the protocol however you can.

Jump on the testnet (agqain make sure it’s the official site) and interact with the protocol’s decentralised applications there. You’ll need an Ethereum wallet, such as MetaMask, with the correct RPC configuration – and this site can help you with the latter.

And for further guidance and tips on the interaction process, “Enigma” has a great, comprehensive Twitter thread on the matter:

 

Sui – hyped layer 1

Like Aptos, SUI is another hyped newcomer to the smart-contract blockchain scene. And also like Aptos, it’s founded by former Meta employees aiming to develop a highly scalable layer 1, proof-of-stake chain to rival the likes of Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche et al.

There’s no guarantee of eligibility for a potential SUI drop at this stage, as the project closed acceptance for new validators at the end of August. But rumour has it there might still be a chance if the project’s looking to launch with extra market liquidity.

Here’s what the Twitter account @defiyield_app thinks you should try:

• Create a Sui wallet: suiet.app/install

• Request Sui testnet tokens: sui.bluemove.net or discord.com/invite/sui

• Create Sui NFT on testnet: sui-wallet-demo.sui.io

• Mint a Sui name on testnet: sui-names.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-X39gx1Tbk

 

LayerZero

LayerZero is an “omnichain” interoperability protocol designed to connect multiple chains. It’s something Apollo Capital’s David Angliss highlighted briefly in his rundown of the Astrolab DeFi yield-aggregating project, which is leveraging the so-far extremely secure LayerZero tech.

The protocol has huge backers, with US$135 million raised from FTX, Coinbase, PayPal (apparently their first Web3 investment), a16z and Sequoia Capital.

The potential ZRO token airdrop is again, covered well by various airdrop watchers, including Miles Deutscher.

The token isn’t in circulation yet, but as Deutscher notes, “we know it exists because it’s viewable on their information code“.

The airdrop hunter’s strategy isn’t super straightforward, but might be worth doing as much of it as you have time for.

It involves DAO voting on Stargate Finance; using various other crypto projects building on LayerZero; using the Aptos bridge; and using the USDC X LayerZero bridge.

 

Further opportunities

Those four potential drops are the most promising we’re seeing, however, the Twitter accounts we’ve mentioned above are all extremely well-informed and have ears constantly to the ground.

Among many other airdrops that could be worth looking into, the following also stand out:

• ZetaChain – a Cosmos-based layer 1 blockchain that also has “omnichain” capability aims.

• Quai Network – a layer 1 network of blockchains that uses merging to achieve a high throughput.

• Optimism – this major layer 2 scaling solution has already released 5% of the 19% of its OP token supply it’s allocating to airdrop distribution. Which means there’s 14% more airdropping to go.

 

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