I just sat down and looked back at the entire Web3 airdrop journey from 2023 until now, and I truly feel... sad. From the golden days when everyone believed that early interaction = fair rewards, to now when airdrops have become a brutal farming game where retail investors are always losing.

During the Uniswap, ENS, Arbitrum era, it was truly a "golden marriage" period—early users and projects building together, sharing benefits. But from 2024 onwards, with huge VC funds and professional studios rushing in, everything changed completely. Airdrops are no longer "rewards," but have become a systematic harvesting machine.

HOP Protocol was the pioneer—they created a "Sybil complaint community" mechanism that made everyone compete against each other. The project team stayed at home, exploiting human greed to have them self-censor. The influence spread: from then on, "anti-fraud" became an excuse for projects to implement secret and arbitrary rules.

Blast was a major turning point—from traditional interaction to a "point accumulation" system. The rules kept changing, with KOLs and big investors taking their share, while ordinary users locked their funds for months with profits even lower than bank interest. From here, "reward embedding" became an industry standard, and the once-proud decentralized spirit of Web3... died under the pressure of capital.

LayerZero was the explosion point. After 18 months of cross-chain interaction, users spent billions in gas fees, then were subjected to the project team’s "presumption of guilt"—requiring self-incrimination or complete deletion. Many genuine users were excluded, while accounts related to the project remained safe. This was the first time I saw the community truly lose trust.

zkSync is a typical example of "using activity to cheat gas, then using capital volume to exclude people." They attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from L2 users, then reduced transaction weight, replacing it with "capital volume at a certain point." The result: long-term users got nothing, while new accounts reaped most of the benefits. That’s when the entire market lost hope in L2 airdrops.

Infinex is a special case—backed by Kain Warwick, the founder of Synthetix, it attracted users through Patron NFTs and month-long point campaigns. But when the TGE in January 2026 happened, with a very high FDV valuation, "one-year lock-up," and chaotic distribution, participation on day one collapsed disastrously. The team had to constantly "fix urgent bugs." That’s when I realized: NFT + point accumulation = complete failure.

Linea pushed PUA to a terrifying level—two years of Galxe Odyssey with thousands of absurd tasks. Users had to constantly answer questions, transfer chains, swap, mint worthless NFTs, and endure cumbersome KYC. The result: full-time jobs with very low pay and significant mental toll. Many burned out and left the community.

Grass was outright exploitation—projects luring users to keep their machines running 24/7, contributing bandwidth. When tokens were issued, most were kept or distributed to VC funds, while retail investors mined monthly with sales that barely covered electricity and proxy costs. That’s when I understood: many DePIN projects are just "parasite software."

Monad was a highly anticipated high-performance L1, but the TGE in October 2025 was a real scam. Although opened to 230,000 addresses, the distribution rate was only 3.3%. Actual testnet users were excluded or received very little, while KOLs took most. This event dampened expectations for new L1 airdrops.

Babylon tried to impose Ethereum staking models on Bitcoin—an awful idea. Due to BTC’s limited capacity and network congestion, many small investors paid exorbitant mining fees but failed to stake successfully. Lucky ones staking for six months found that the airdrop benefits were much lower than trading spreads. A costly lesson: copying Ethereum’s PUA model simply doesn’t work in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Backpack raised $37 million, deceived the community for two years with "transaction volume = points." Just before TGE, they applied strict KYC like a witch hunt, wiping out many accounts. A major investor generated $15 billion in volume, spent $300,000 in fees, and only received $150,000 worth of tokens—losing 50%. Real users’ money directly became the developers’ profit. BP tokens plummeted 68% in the first week. The image of a Chinese entrepreneur collapsed, and the "Chinese project = scam" stereotype deeply rooted in the community’s mind.

EdgeX was where Perp DEXs collapsed. Old users paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in trading fees just to get airdrops under a thousand dollars, while over 80 new addresses with no interaction history held nearly $100 million. Chain investigators verified links between market makers and illicit activities. Official accounts disabled comments and disappeared. That’s when the manipulation story of Perp DEX volume on the blockchain completely fell apart.

Genius was the "last straw." After the community massively increased trading volume, the TGE received a counter gift: in the first 7 days, airdrops would automatically burn 70% of tokens, leaving only 30%, or lock for a year to receive full. Under public pressure, the team implemented a "refund" option—48 hours after TGE, users could burn 100% of the airdrop to get their fees back. That was the "last straw" that crushed the airdrop hunters.

Looking back at this entire story, I see clearly: this is not just a planned harvest, but a collective obsession with speculation and greed. The community only cares about "will there be tokens, how are they distributed," not whether the project truly achieves PMF or can generate sustainable revenue. Projects exploit this greed—if you want an airdrop, they want your capital and transaction fees.

The airdrop bubble has burst, and countless people have been "reversed" and shattered. But this can also be seen as a ruthless cleansing. The market is finally forced to return to rationality: attracting traffic based on airdrop expectations is an illusion, and only products with real PMF on blockchain deserve time and capital investment.

This is the end of the era of airdrops, and also the rebirth of Web3. Projects originating from PUA and dark secrets will be eliminated by users through voting with their feet. Meanwhile, those truly ready to build with the community, returning to core values, are the projects that will earn precious trust amid the wreckage.

For those seeking short-term profits, this is a painful lesson and a wake-up call. The community needs to learn how to distinguish: reputable exchanges, valuable blockchain projects, and transparent airdrop mechanisms are the way forward. Do you know of any other projects? Share in the comments!