The Dilemma and Solutions of the Web3 Airdrop Ecosystem

Airdrop, as an important marketing strategy in the cryptocurrency field, once sparked a frenzy due to its wealth creation effect. However, recently, airdrops have gradually evolved into a controversial battleground. The trust crisis between project parties and users, imbalance in distribution mechanisms, rampant witch attacks, and the survival dilemmas of participants together constitute the complex landscape of the current airdrop ecology. This article will take recent hot events as examples to explore the deep-seated contradictions in the Web3 airdrop ecology and possible solutions.

1. Imbalanced allocation by the project party, users from "harvesting" to "being harvested"

1. Capital-led distribution logic

Taking a recent controversial blockchain project airdrop as an example, the total airdrop amount accounted for 15.8% of the initial supply, but testnet users received only 1.65%, while NFT holders accounted for 6.9%. Six major NFT holders shared $306 million worth of tokens through a rare series of NFTs, with the highest earnings for a single address reaching $55.77 million. A similar phenomenon is also evident in another well-known project: 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-stage investors with substantial funding, while testnet users contributing to on-chain activity become "low-income households".
• Rule black-boxing: Some projects have not disclosed the details of their airdrop algorithms, while others have been questioned for allocating tokens to specific NFT holders who did not participate in the ecosystem, creating controversy due to 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 recent projects have shifted towards "fund retention time" and "risk asset allocation" as core indicators: providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges can earn double incentives, and users holding high-risk tokens or NFTs enjoy multiplier rewards. This shift, while suppressing witch attacks, has led to the disincentivization of ordinary users, creating a vicious cycle where "the higher the capital threshold, the greater the returns."

2. Users from "Participation Frenzy" to "Trust Collapse"

1. Expectations Missed and Liquidity Trap

• Yield Inversion: Participants in a certain project invested a large number of testnet addresses but received only a small amount of tokens, while pre-deposit users were forced to lock their funds for three months, and early redemption would require them to bear losses.
• Selling frenzy spreads: Only 19.3% of the tokens are still held in the airdrop addresses of a certain project, with 80% sold off, causing the mainnet activity to plummet; the cross-chain trading volume of another project sharply decreased by 75% after the airdrop, highlighting that airdrops have become a "one-time traffic tool".

2. The Spread of Trust Fractures

• Double standards in rules: Early users of a certain project were deprived of qualifications due to not participating in the new version's interaction, while partners received a large number of tokens, far exceeding their publicly raised funds.
• The bankruptcy of technological idealism: Despite the introduction of innovative mechanisms and models, distribution controversies reveal that if economic models deviate 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 banned a large number of addresses through community reports, but mistakenly judged many real users; while the reputation system attempts to balance security and fairness, biometric verification and KYC have raised privacy controversies, falling into the "three-way dilemma of decentralized identity".

3. The Survival Dilemma of Participants

As the Web3 Airdrop ecosystem evolves, users participating in multiple project airdrops to obtain token rewards face 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 by project parties.

1. "Small capital high-frequency interaction" becomes "high-cost game"

Early participants maximized airdrop yields by creating addresses in bulk and interacting at low costs. However, as project teams adjusted the airdrop rules, individual addresses required large amounts of funds to be held long-term, with costs far exceeding the benefits. Taking a certain project as an example, it uses "fund retention time" and "risk asset allocation" as core indicators, requiring users to hold large amounts of funds long-term or provide liquidity. This significantly increases the costs for individual addresses, while the yields may not necessarily cover the investments.

2. The devaluation of interactive value

The weight of traditional high-frequency interaction behaviors in Airdrops has decreased, making it difficult for ordinary users to achieve considerable returns through low-cost operations. In contrast, users with substantial capital have gained higher rewards by holding high-risk assets or NFTs, leaving ordinary users with increasingly limited profit opportunities.

IV. Breaking the Impasse: Reconstructing Consensus on Fairness

Currently, airdrops seem to be caught in a dilemma, as the traditional model often uses 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 target users but also fosters speculative behavior, deviating from the original intention of project development.

To reconstruct the consensus of fairness, it is necessary to establish a more scientific and reasonable airdrop mechanism:

1. From "quantity" to "quality": Incorporate users' contributions to the project into the Airdrop criteria, such as participating in community building, providing liquidity, completing specific tasks, etc., to encourage users to deeply engage in the project ecosystem.

2. From "one-time" to "sustainable": Combining airdrops with the long-term development goals of projects, such as providing dynamic rewards based on users' holding time, participation in governance, etc., to incentivize users to grow together with the project.

3. From "centralization" to "decentralization": Utilizing blockchain technology to establish a transparent and open airdrop mechanism, such as automatically executing airdrop rules through smart contracts to avoid human manipulation and enhance user trust.

The project team needs to be transparent and engage in co-governance with community users, for example:

• Algorithm Audit: Public Airdrop parameters, introducing third-party audit to verify the rationality of the rules.
• Decentralized Autonomous Organization Governance: Release anti-witch standards in advance and open community discussions, introduce a voting mechanism, and allow users to participate in rule design.
• Gradient distribution: Rewards are dynamically adjusted based on staking duration and contribution, limiting the monopoly of large holders; increasing the weight for small and frequent users, reducing the asset threshold ratio.
• Long-term value binding: Link airdrop to governance rights, users need to continuously participate in voting to unlock benefits, suppressing short-term selling.
• Technology empowers fair verification: By using social accounts, on-chain behavior, and other multi-dimensional identity verification, the cost of attacks is increased; exploring zero-knowledge proof technology to verify real identities while protecting privacy.

Conclusion

Airdrop should not be merely a game of wealth transfer. Recent controversies have revealed the core contradictions of the Web3 airdrop mechanism: project parties pursuing cold start efficiency, users yearning for fair returns, while capital seeks to exploit arbitrage opportunities. When airdrops become "exit channels" or "traffic bait," the collapse of trust and user exodus will become inevitable. In the future, only through transparent rules, community governance, and technological iteration can airdrops return to the essence of "contributor first," thereby reshaping the foundation of trust in the Web3 ecosystem. Letting value creators share in the value is the ultimate answer to the spirit of decentralization.