Airdrops are incredible mechanisms for rewarding early users. 

Platforms, exchanges, and projects value interaction as well as feedback which is vital in helping to refine the product in its early stages. In the beta testing stage, before public launch, honing user experience can make all the difference between a hero and a dud. Optimising performance, putting customer support through its paces, or pushing server loads to see how they respond under duress are just a few parts of the process in realising huge visions with quality. 

The psychology behind airdrops is akin to the behavioural toolkit used in supermarket loyalty programmes or airline frequent flyer miles. Rewards reinforce behaviour and increase the probability that behaviour's increases. 

Just by interacting with tools from your crypto wallet, you have the chance of receiving thousands of dollars worth of free tokens. The uniswap airdrop netted each user that had interacted with the platform 400 UNI tokens, worth about $40k at its height. The 1inch airdrop netted one power user $27.5m, at the price of $2.8 per token. Over 90 million tokens were distributed amongst anyone that had used the platform.  The ENS airdrop personally netted me 140 ENS tokens (circa $10k) for simply purchasing papajams.eth, which cost me around $200 a few months previous. 

The only caveat is that it's impossible to know in advance which platforms will do airdrops, if they ever even decide to launch their own token in the first place. So obviously the only solution for true degens is to dig for gold. 

TREASURE HUNT

Since it's all so early, crypto literally pays you to learn about crypto. Think back to the early days of Paypal where they would literally give you $10 to use their service, or Uber’s free rides to every early user, or Deliveroo did the same, as did airbnb, and so the list continues. It's a growth hack strategy that is simple and effective because you know the one price everybody loves? Free!

And a basic level you can learn and earn on exchanges like coinbase, binance, and kucoin which all have programmes that net you anything up to around $50 just for taking their courses on crypto. I think of this as the equivalent of finding a note you forgot in jeans you haven’t worn in a while.

Airdrops are a whole other level: cue mini gold rush!

Thanks to this tweet by @FutureIsCrypto we* found ourselves on a wild goose chase for rumoured possible  airdrops. Another site airdrops.io lists more tools expected to airdrop in the future and this epic spreadsheet from Jean Brasse lists a whole lot more.

We tried as many as possible, which can get expensive with GAS transaction fees doing their thing.  Below you will find the path of least resistance (and gas) we were able to work out. The goal is to interact with as many platforms as possible, and thereby become eligible for airdrops (which may or may not happen), but one piece of silver lining is you’ll get comfortable with layer 2 blockchain technology - vaunted as the future of crypto - and learn from some of our more expensive mistakes. Get ready for an adventure through web3!

MINIMAL GAS SPEND

Preparations

1. Set up a MetaMask wallet
2. Add the Polygon, xDAI, Optimistic & Arbitrum chains to your MetaMask. DIY online how to do this or use the links provided.
3. Buy $150 of Polygon (MATIC) from Moonpay. This is the only cash you’ll need for the whole process if you follow carefully. If you already have ETH, you can bridge it to MATIC via the Polygon bridge. 

xDAI chain (now known as Gnosis Chain)

1. Swap $140 of MATIC → xDAI via zapper.fi 
2. Bridge all that xDAI from Polygon chain → xDAI chain via hop.exchange
3. Swap $10 of xDAI → $GNO via cowswap.exchange and HODL
4. Keep $10 of xDAI for gas but swap the rest → USDC using debank.com 

Optimism chain

1. Swap $25 of MATIC → ETH using MetaMask’s own ‘swap’ function. It will show as wETH once complete.
2. Bridge all wETH from Polygon → Optimistic chain via synapseprotocol.com
3. Bridge all USDC from xDAI → Optimistic chain via hop.exchange
4. Swap all USDC → wETH via app.rubicon.finance
5. Swap that wETH → USDC via app.1inch.io
6. Swap all USDC → wETH via uniswap.org 

Arbitrum chain

1. Keep $10 of wETH for gas but bridge the rest from Optimism → Arbitrum chain via cbridge.celer.network
2. Keep $10 of wETH for gas but swap the rest → USDC via app.handle.fi
3. Swap all USDC to wETH via app.zerion.io (if the swap page isn’t loading, switch to Ethereum Mainnet first in MetMask then back to Polygon once the page loads)
4. Bridge back to Polygon chain via hop.exchange  

Polygon

1. Swap $10 wETH → MATIC via dex.guru
2. Leave $10 MATIC & swap remainder → USDC via clipper.exchange

Solana [for this section you need a Phantom wallet with some spare solana in it for gas]

1. Bridge all USDC from Polygon → Solana chain via wormholebridge.com (at this point you connect both MetaMask & Phantom wallets)
2. Swap the resulting wpUSDC USDC via app.saber.so
3. Swap the USDC → FIDA via orca.so
   1. Buy a .sol domain from bonfida.org if you like
4. Swap all FIDA → Orca via swap.symmetry.fi
5. Swap all ORCA → Solana via Phantom’s internal wallet swap

And that’s a wrap! 

By my count that is at least twenty interactions that could airdrop you a little thank you down the road. Now there are plenty more where that came from, depending on many resources you want to allocate to the hunt. Share how you get on in the comments! 

Platforms we left out for the minimal gas strategy (but have aped into nonetheless)

Exchanges

Matcha.xyz - Ethereum, Binance and Polygon 
thorswap.finance - THORchain (lookup Thor Chads) 
Plasma.finance - Ethereum (more of a portfolio manager)
Multichain.xyz - Fantom, ethereum, arbitrum, binance
Exchange.idex.io - Polygon chain decentralised exchange
app.xy.finance - Cross chain exchange

Bridges

Across.to - for bridging between Arbitrum and Ethereum Mainnet
https://xpollinate.io/ - cross chain transfers (use the beta version for better UX)

Trading

App.lyra.finance - options trading on the optimism chain (layer 2)
App.mcdex.io - perpetuals contracts (derivatives similar to futures) on arbitrum chain (layer 2)
kwenta.io - for trading or exchanging collateral backed synthetic tokens. Seems not to like google chrome but works on other browsers like Decentr - i used coinbase wallet.
app.defisaver.com - defi protocol portfolio manager (lending and borrowing)

Testnets 

There are networks such as Rinkeby, Kovan and Ropstein (you’ll see them in your metamask) where developers can trial out their platforms before launching them on the main net. You can get different tokens for free on these test networks (no value) and trial everything out e.g. this one 

There is also list of working faucets here: https://docs.chain.link/docs/link-token-contracts/#rinkeby

App.timeswap.io - like uniswap, but for lending & borrowing
Backd.fund - testnet on the kovan network 
Swivel.exchange (used compound faucet to get DAI)

Domain Names

https://avvy.domains/ - Avalanche domains coming soon
https://adahandle.com/ - Cardano domains just had their beta sale of 15k domains
https://ens.domains/ - ENS (eth) domains already had an airdrop, will there be another?
https://unstoppabledomains.com/ - very cool domains on offer too
https://tns.money/ - terra domains (.ust)
https://wallet.near.org/ - near protocol domains
https://tezos.domains/ - Tezos (domain) domains

Hope you catch some golden geese...and they lay eggs.

Thanks for reading! 

1. Give me a shout on twitter.
2. Hola with any big wins you’ve had in the comments! Or any egregious misses!
3. Check out my mum’s digital generative art. 
4. Check out my Genesis NFT collection.
5. Join my mailing list

* when I say we, i mean some friends and fellow degens who love this stuff and are on telegram + whats app groups together keeping an eye out for new stuff and learning together - highly recommend finding your own little band of merry investors. 

** this article was co-written by anatu.eth

Signing off! papajams.eth // .tez // .sol // .ust etc you get the picture 🤦🏻‍♀️ 😂