A Strategy Guide To Farming L2 Airdrops
Lessons from Previous Crypto Airdrops
Oh airdrops, let me count the ways I love thee:
Yee don’t require me to risk my crypto like with trading
Yee teaches me about the far reaches of DeFi
Yee look like magic money to my friends & family
It’s become pretty standard practice for new crypto protocols to airdrop tokens to their early users to bootstrap platform development and incentivize participation.
Specifically, I wanted to look at the past airdrop criteria for L2s, Dapps, and Bridges, to help me (and you) understand how best to qualify for future airdrops.
Because my goal is to farm as many airdrop opportunities as possible, that means I want to be strategic about using bridges and dapps that might qualify me for additional drops. It’s the ole – kill two birds with one stone. Thus, I also analyze past airdrop criteria for dapps and bridges.
You might just want to just skip down to the takeaways if that’s more your jam. I included all of the criteria data for each platform, but it’s a lot, so I summarize it up at the bottom.
The Index:
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What Past Airdrops Did I Include?
I researched a few different airdrops to gain insight into how those airdrops selected their recipients. Specifically, I looked at Optimism, Arbitrum, StarkNet, Celestia, dYdX, 1Inch, and Wormhole.
I avoided analyzing protocols with point-farming like Ethena, Blast, Jito, EtherFi and many others. First, I really don’t love these systems as they look like semi-ponzi structures to me. Second, those are so simple to farm, you don’t need me to tell you how to do it. And third, I think that L2s without point systems tend to be the most lucrative, because there’s more uncertainty around farming them and whether that farming will amount to anything.
Ultimately, unexpected airdrops are more valuable than the ones everyone is farming.
Which Airdrops Am I Targeting?
The whole point of this exercise is to help us understand how to target and receive upcoming airdrops that I think could be big. There are so many potential airdrops that we have to focus. I would rather spend my time meaningfully participating in protocols that I really believe in, rather than spraying and praying across hundreds.
In particular, I’m interested in farming promising L2 protocols. Ultimately, I also can farm exchanges and other Dapps while also farming the L2, which is what I do (and will talk about that more in future farming guides). Ultimately, how valuable these L2 Governance tokens actually are is up for debate (and I’ll also explore that in an article that’s currently in the works).
Now, specifically, these are point-less airdrops that I am focusing on – ranked in my order of priority. A lot of this priority is based on how much each L2 has raised, as well as how long they’ve been in development. Next to each L2, I’ve listed how much they’re valued at currently.
I love zkSync, which raised a total of $1.4 billion at an unknown valuation. The issue is that they’ve already begun listing their token on CEXs, which suggests that their airdrop has already happened. So I took them off the list.
Linea (valued at a staggered $7 billion as of last year)
Base (unknown valuation, but owned by Coinbase)
Scroll (valued at $1.8 billion in their latest round)
Fuel (raised $80 million in 2022 at an unknown valuation)
Eclipse (raised $50 million more in March of 2024 at an unknown valuation)
Some other potential airdrops that we’ll explore later:
Mantle
Taiko
LayerZero
Shardeum
Additionally, there’s some obvious point-farming drops that I think are worth our time, including:
EigenLayer
Renzo
There are many more that might be worthwhile to look at. I recommend subscribing to Bankless Pro (this is referral link that helps me and doesn’t cost you anything and supports my research & writing. If you do mind, here’s a non-referral code) which gives you access to their airdrop guide for $22/month. That’s what I do.
But if the 83+ airdrop opps or $22/month on Bankless is too overwhelming, I’ll continue to publish easy airdrop guide for the protocols I think are most worth your while, and I will be sending monthly reminders to make transactions according to my own farming schedule (since consistency counts). Hopefully, that will make it easier on everyone!
The Risks With Airdrop Farming:
Let’s review the risks. Airdrops are technically your reward for taking risks by putting money on new, untested, crypto protocols.
You could be vulnerable to hacks and protocol failures. Every additional bridge or dapp you use in the farming process is an additional fault point. This is especially true if you’re staking or providing liquidity on a dapp. Simply bridging or swapping as a one-time transaction tends to be pretty low-risk.
The protocol itself could get hacked or have a tragic, unforeseen error.
Airdrop farming makes you a susceptible target for scams. Always click on trustworthy links and use a new Metamask wallet specifically for airdrop farming. Please double check any links before connecting your wallet.
I’m unsure about the long-term value proposition of L2 tokens. This is only relevant once you get the airdrop.
Many of these airdrops allocate 35-50% of the tokens to the teams and investors. You can often see the effect of this in the massive fully-diluted marketcap of these tokens. This doesn’t increase the risk in receiving the airdrop. But it will effect the long-term of value of these tokens.
Please be careful and don’t risk more capital than you can lose.
Past L2 Airdrops:
Here’s a handy sheet I created on google sheets that you can use to keep track of your farming. Just remember to duplicate the sheet do you can edit it.=
Here are the following L2s – from 2022-2024 – that awarded considerable airdrops to their early users. Below, you’ll also find the criteria and some takeaways.
The StarkNet Airdrop
Airdropped on Feb. 2024 – totaling $2.1 billion
StarkNet was a pretty considerable airdrop. There will be more airdrops as well, so it might be worth continuing to participate on the network, especially in their governance. The criteria for the first airdrop was one or more of the following:
You used Starknet more than five times in total during three separate months
+ transacted with a cumulative amount of at least $100 before November 15th, 2023
+ had 0.005 ETH or more in your account on that date.
Used a StarkEx-based app at least eight times before June 1st, 2022
Less relevant for basic users:
was a member of Early Community Member Program (ECMP) or made three repository commits that appeared in the Electric Capital report and one made before 2018.
Participated in Ethereum, including:
staking ETH prior to 2022,
were a member of the Ethereum Protocol Guild,
contributed to GitHub as an author or co-author of an EIP,
or you made at least three commits to a repository that is one of the top 5,000 repositories worldwide
The Optimism Airdrop
Optimism has had four separate airdrop events. The criteria became more strict with each event.
Optimism Airdrop Event 1:
Airdropped on May 2022 – 200m OP tokens to 250,000 early adopters worth about $400m. the Snapshot was taken in late March 2022.
Who qualified?
Addresses that bridged to OP Mainnet from L1 during the early phases of mainnet (prior to Jun 23, 2021),
OR used OP Mainnet for more than 1 day and made a transaction using an app (after to Jun 23, 2021).
95% of multi sig wallets that used Optimism
Gitcoin donors
Addresses that bridged to another chain – like Polygon, Fantom or BSC – but still made an app transaction on Ethereum in each month after they bridged, and transacted at an average rate of at least 2 per week since then.
Optimism Airdrop Event 2:
Airdropped on June 2023 – 1,742,277.10 OP to 307,965 unique addresses
This airdrop focused on those that participated in Optimism goverance.
Who qualified?
Governance:
Had an Active Delegation ≥ 20 OP at Snapshot
Had 54,367 total ‘OP Delegated x Days’
Usage:
Had made App transactions on Optimism across 6 distinct months
Spent ≥ $20 on Gas Fees
Optimism Airdrop Event 3:
Airdropped on Sep 18, 2022 – 19,411,313 OP to 31,870 unique addresses
This airdrop further rewarded delegators:
Addresses with fewer than 18,000
OP Delegated x Days(or 9,000 if delegated to a voting delegate) were not eligible for this airdrop.Addresses who were delegated for < 7 days were not eligible for this airdrop
Optimism Airdrop Event 4:
This airdrop rewarded NFT creators who met a certain criteria such as volume transacted for an NFT which was created by their wallet.
The Arbitrum Airdrop
Airdropped on March 23, 2023 – worth $1.97B
Arbitrum rewarded users both for their usage of Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova. I would recommend staking some ARB and participating in their governance process to qualify for future airdrops. I think there is more to come.
Who qualified?
Users who used Arbitrum One:
Bridged funds into Arbitrum One
Conducted transactions:
during 2 distinct months
during 6 distinct months
during 9 months
Conducted more than:
4 transactions or interacted with more than 4 different smart contracts
10 transactions or interacted with more than 10 different smart contracts
25 transactions or interacted with more than 25 different smart contracts
Conducted more than:
100 transactions or interacted with more than 100 different smart contracts
Conducted transactions exceeding:
$10,000 in value
$50,000 in value
$250,000 in value
Bridged more than:
$10,000 of assets
$50,000 of assets
$250,000 of assets
Usage on Arbitrum Nova:
Bridged funds into Arbitrum Nova
Conducted more than:
3 transactions
5 transactions
10 transactions
Penalties Employed By The ARB Airdrop (important to review!)
As you can see, users needed more than 3 points to qualify for the airdrop. You could lose points for several activities including:
If a wallet transactions have all occurred within a 48-hour period, one point is subtracted.
If a wallet balance is less than .005 ETH, and if the wallet hasn't interacted with more than one smart contract, one point is subtracted.
If a wallet address has been identified as a Sybil address during the Hop protocol bounty program the recipient is disqualified.
Celestia (TIA)
Airdropped on Sep 2023 - total $728.4M
It’s depatable whether this is considered an L2
Who qualified?
top 50% of active users of the top 10 Ethereum rollups by TVL
Public Github contributors to:
public goods and key protocol infrastructure of Ethereum, rollups, Bitcoin, and Cosmos
Celestia projects
Stakers of ≥ $75, allocated by stake and onchain activity on Cosmos Hub and Osmosis
Users with a snapshotted balance of $50 onchain or bridged to the top 10 Ethereum rollups by TVL on L2 Beat, as of 20 April, 2023
Past Dapp Airdrops:
When farming L2 airdrops Since a lot of these L2s will require us to transfer ETH from either the mainnet or an existing L2, it’s wise for us to use dapps that might have their own airdrops. I included the dYdX and 1Inch airdrops in our analysis:
The dYdX Airdrop
Airdropped on Aug 2022 – worth $2.01B
dYdX is a Perps trading platform.
Criteria:
Users who utilized DYDX before July 26, 2021. Depending on how much you traded, you were awarded the airdrop.
The lowest tier was between $1 to $10k
The 1Inch Airdrop
Airdropped on Dec. 2021, worth $670m
1Inch is a decentralized exchange that works on a bunch of different ETH L2s.
Who Qualified?
People who used 1Inch before December 24, 2020 and did:
1 trade before September 15, 2020
or made at least four trades
or traded a total of $20
Past Bridge Airdrops:
Bridges allow us to transfer tokens between chains. Since a lot of these L2s will require us to transfer ETH from either the mainnet or an existing L2, it’s wise for us to use Bridges that might have their own airdrops. I included Wormhole – which recently had an airdrop – to assess what criteria we might need to meet when using Bridges:
The WormHole Airdrop
WormHole airdropped $3B in tokens on April 3rd, 2024.
Those who interacted with the protocol before February 6, 2024 were eligible. Unfortunately, the exact criteria for the airdrop weren’t released, which is probably a wise decision. But it was a combination of total value bridges and total amount of transactions.
Additional Airdrop Takeaways
I think it’s important to note that many later airdrops adopted the blacklists or sybil lists of earlier projects and banned them from their own airdrops. Avoid this kind of behavior because the consequences could be immense. On a side note, I don’t think this applies to “airdrop farming.” This applies to strategies that create dozens or hundreds of wallets and try to spam transactions with bots.
The Best Way To Farm Airdrops
Earlier airdrops were much easier to qualify for than current drops. They were also much more lucrative. As more and more people have caught on, platforms have become more stringent in their criteria.
However, there is still a lot of money to be made, especially farming platforms that raised significant capital. Personally, as I said in the intro, I like targeting platforms without points systems, because they tend to be a bit less hyped and thus, the tokens are more concentrated to actual users and early adopters. That’s not to say it’s not still valuable at times to jump in on the point pyramid…
…but since those platforms pretty much reward you according to how much staked capital you have, you’re probably only going to get about $1 for every $20 you stake.
It’s also important for me to say that the most valuable airdrops are always the ones no one expected. The only way to increase your likelihood is to be an active explorer of the crypto ecosystem. Test out new things. Join new platforms. Sign up for email lists. Etc. I’ll do my best to keep an eye out and share anything I think looks promising.
As you can see from past L2s, it’s not so much about how much capital you stake, as it is about how consistently active you are. Based on my research, I think it’s really important to do the following:
The Key Takeaways:
Transfer AT LEAST .01 ETH to the L2.
.1 ETH is better, if you can afford it.
Keep that ETH on the L2
Don’t transfer it off until the airdrop
Interacting with as many Dapps as possible on the chain
Make monthly transactions, consecutively, in increments of a few transactions every month
Make transactions on Dapps and Bridges that might also yield airdrops.
Bridge funds from L2 → L2, not ETH Mainnet → L2, since you will save lots of money. If you can, do multiple bridges as well to qualify for bridge airdrops.
For Bridges and Dapps and L2s, it comes down to total value and total transactions. If you don’t have the funds to make large transactions (in excess of $1k), then you’ll need to compensate with quantity.
It’s also important to note that snapshots were generally taken about 2 months before the airdrop, meaning that only those users who met the criteria before the snapshot qualified for the airdrop. So get on it! (Which is my way of saying subscribe to get specific airdrop guides 🙂)
Now…let’s write some guides and farm some L2s.
As always, none of this is financial advice. I am not telling you to buy or sell anything, just sharing my underlying research and conclusions.
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