2024 is a hot year for airdrops. More institutions are adopting and building on blockchain technology. This brings in early participants to interact with upcoming projects as well as investors. They are then incentivized with tokens or with an NFT as a reward. Participating in airdrop campaigns is a great way to understand upcoming projects' roadmaps and how their blockchain technology works, which offers a practical experience on their chain.
Ways to qualify for airdrops:
Alpha
Alpha is a phrase used in the crypto community regarding upcoming airdrops and qualification criteria. Upcoming crypto projects generally provide this information to their community members and holders of their tokens. They use X to communicate their upcoming airdrops. YouTube, Telegram, and Discord are good ways to get social alpha. Zealy and Galxe is a way to get alpha by completing tasks and quests. Sites such as Airdrops.io are great for finding upcoming airdrops and what is needed to qualify.
Testnets
Testnets Mostly, participants must complete actions on Testnets to qualify for airdrops, often requiring little to no upfront investment. Testnets are a great way to qualify for airdrops with little to no upfront investments. Participants get to interact with the chain apps and use test tokens for various DeFi quests. Participants qualify for rewards upon the token's launch by receiving the token. Since Testnets require very little upfront investment, they do require actions such as claiming test tokens from a faucet and then using those tokens to complete actions required by the upcoming projects.
Always use a burner wallet when participating in Testnet quests.
Staking
Staking Crypto holders who have their tokens staked often qualify for airdrops. The tokens are either the tokens staked or tokens from other projects using the blockchain. This is another reason to stake. The staked tokens contribute to securing the network, earning more tokens, and airdrop eligibility. Chains such as the Cosmos network have rewarded Stakers who have staked Atom, Osmosis, and even Celestia tokens. By staking tokens that are on a particular network, Stakers can qualify for airdrops from upcoming projects that are building or using that blockchain.
Interacting on chains
Interacting with blockchains By using crypto on governance or Dapps is another way to qualify for airdrops. Crypto projects would take what is known as a snapshot of wallets that were using Dapps and making transactions on their platform so that tokens are airdropped to wallets captured by the snapshots. This is evident in the Jupiter airdrop to participants who used the Dapp to make transactions.
