The Dilemma and Solutions of the Web3 Airdrop Ecosystem

In the cryptocurrency field, airdrops were once a highly sought-after marketing and user acquisition strategy. However, recently, this practice has gradually transformed from the "get-rich myth" into a controversial battleground. The crisis of trust between project parties and users, the imbalance of distribution mechanisms, the proliferation of witch attacks, and the survival dilemmas of participants together form a complex picture of the current airdrop ecosystem. This article will take some recent cases as a starting point to explore the problems existing in the Web3 airdrop ecosystem and their possible solutions.

1. Imbalance in Project Allocation, User Role Reversal

1. Capital-led distribution logic

Taking the recently controversial airdrop of a certain project as an example, the total amount of the airdrop accounts for 15.8% of the initial supply, but testnet users only received 1.65%, while NFT holders accounted for 6.9%. Six NFT whales divided 306 million dollars worth of tokens through a scarce series of NFTs, with a single address reaching a maximum profit of 55.77 million dollars. Similar phenomena exist in other projects: 1.3% of addresses received 23.9% of the token share, with the lowest and highest rewards differing by 100 times. This "wealth disparity" exposes two major issues with the airdrop mechanism:

• Resources tilt towards capital: NFT holders are mostly early investors with substantial funds, while users of the testnet contributing to on-chain activity have become "low-income" (for example, the average earnings of users from a certain project's testnet are less than 1 dollar).

• Rule black-boxing: Some projects have not disclosed the details of the airdrop algorithm, and some have been questioned for allocating tokens to NFT holders who did not participate in the ecosystem, leading to disputes over the ambiguity of the rules.

2. Systematic Devaluation of Interactive Value

Traditional airdrops focus on trading frequency, cross-chain interactions, and other engagement behaviors, but some emerging projects are shifting towards core metrics such as "fund retention time" and "risk asset allocation": providing liquidity to DEX can yield double rewards, and users holding high-risk tokens or NFTs enjoy multiplier rewards. This shift, while suppressing witch attacks, leads to the incentive failure for ordinary users, creating a vicious cycle where "the higher the capital threshold, the greater the returns."

2. Users from "Carnival" to "Trust Collapse"

1. Expectations Falling Short and Liquidity Trap

• Yield Inversion: In a certain project, users who invested a large amount of resources to participate in testing only received a small amount of tokens, while users with pre-deposits were forced to lock their funds for three months, and early redemption would incur losses.

• The wave of selling spreads: only 19.3% of the airdrop addresses for a certain project continue to hold tokens, with 80% choosing to sell, leading to a sharp decline in mainnet activity; another project's cross-chain trading volume dropped by 75% after the airdrop, highlighting that airdrops have become a "one-time traffic tool."

2. The Spread of Trust Cracks

• Double Standards in Rules: Early users of a certain project were deprived of their qualifications for not participating in the new version's interactions, while partners received a large number of tokens, far exceeding their publicly raised amount.

• The bankruptcy of technological idealism: Despite projects launching innovative mechanisms and dual-token models, distribution disputes reveal that if the economic model deviates from fairness, technological innovation may instead become a "fig leaf" for centralized control.

3. The "collateral damage" cost of anti-witch measures

A certain project has banned a large number of addresses through community reports, mistakenly judging many real users; the reputation system attempts to balance security and fairness, but biometric verification and KYC have sparked privacy controversies, falling into the "trilemma of decentralized identity."

3. The Survival Dilemma of Participants

With the evolution of the Web3 Airdrop ecosystem, users participating in multiple project airdrops to obtain token rewards are facing an increasingly harsh survival environment. The once low-cost, high-return strategy is gradually becoming ineffective, replaced by high costs, complex rules, and opaque operations from project parties.

1. From "small fund high-frequency interaction" to "high-cost game"

Early users maximized their airdrop profits by creating addresses in bulk and interacting at low costs. However, as project parties adjusted the rules, individual addresses required large amounts of funds to be held long-term, with costs far exceeding profits (some users' fees even exceeded the value of the airdrop). A certain project has set "fund retention time" and "risk asset allocation" as core indicators, requiring users to hold large amounts of funds long-term or provide liquidity. This has significantly increased the costs for individual addresses, while the profits may not necessarily cover the investment.

2. Interaction value depreciation

The weight of traditional high-frequency interaction behaviors in Airdrops has decreased, making it difficult for ordinary users to obtain considerable profits through low-cost operations. In contrast, users with substantial capital have gained higher rewards by holding high-risk assets or NFTs, diminishing the profit space for ordinary users.

IV. The Way to Break the Dilemma: Reconstructing Consensus on Fairness

Currently, airdrops seem to be in a predicament. The traditional model is often simplistic and brutal, using the number of addresses or the amount of tokens held as the sole criteria, neglecting the users' real contributions and long-term value to the project. This "money-spraying" type of airdrop not only fails to attract the target users but also fosters speculative behavior, deviating from the original intention of project development.

To reconstruct the consensus of fairness, a more scientific and reasonable airdrop mechanism needs to be established:

1. From "quantity" to "quality": Incorporate users' contributions to the project into the Airdrop criteria, encouraging users to engage deeply in the project ecosystem.

2. From "one-time" to "sustainable": Combining airdrops with the long-term development goals of the project, incentivizing users to grow alongside the project through dynamic rewards.

3. From "centralization" to "decentralization": Utilizing blockchain technology to establish a transparent and public airdrop mechanism to enhance user trust.

The project team needs to take the following measures:

• Algorithm Audit: Publicly disclose airdrop parameters and introduce third-party audit to verify the rationality of the rules.

• Community Governance: Publicly disclose anti-witch standards in advance and open community discussions, introducing a voting mechanism to allow users to participate in rule design.

• Gradient Distribution: Rewards are dynamically adjusted based on staking duration and contribution, limiting monopolization by large holders; increasing weight for small, high-frequency users and lowering the asset threshold ratio.

• Long-term value binding: Link airdrops to governance rights, requiring users to continuously participate in unlocking benefits to curb short-term selling.

• Technology empowers fair verification: Increasing the cost of attacks through multi-dimensional identity verification; exploring zero-knowledge proof technology to verify real identities while protecting privacy.

Conclusion

Airdrop is not a panacea and cannot guarantee the success of a project. However, by reconstructing fairness consensus, Airdrop can become a bridge connecting project parties and users, attracting users who truly recognize the value of the project to jointly promote the prosperous development of the on-chain ecosystem. In the future, only by returning Airdrop to the essence of "contributor first" through transparent rules, community governance, and technological iteration can we reshape the cornerstone of trust in the Web3 ecosystem. Letting value creators share value is the ultimate answer to the spirit of decentralization.