Many projects are utilizing a point system to track how many tokens their users will receive for an airdrop. Some of these projects have made excellent use of this system and gained considerable traction. My favorite example of this is ether.fi which has gained a large following and even larger TVL (Total Value Locked).
What is ether.fi?
ether.fi is piggybacking off Eigenlayer and its restaking narrative. On Eigenlayer users can restake their staked Ether from projects like Lido DAO ($STETH) and support projects that need additional security. Users put up their staked $ETH to support these projects and earn additional yield. To learn more about Eigenlayer go here.
ether.fi makes restaking your $ETH on the Ethereum network easy. Instead, of staking with Lido and then doing an additional step by putting it on Eigenlayer users can do it all in one step. This saves gas fees, lowers Ethereum congestion to the network, and simplifies the experience. As soon as you stake your $ETH ether.fi gives the user $EETH, immediately stakes the ETH, and then restakes on Eigenlayer for the user. In return, the user receives:
- Staking yield on their $ETH
- Restaking yield on their $ETH from Eigenlayer
- Points from Eigenlayer (Eigenlayer has its own point system)
- Points from ether.fi which has already become a 10% airdrop
The Points Campaign
If you missed the first airdrop from ether.fi don't despair there will be a second one in the future. The first one began on November 15th and ended on March 15th. The points were converted into $ETHFI tokens and about 10% of the total supply was given as an airdrop. A new campaign has begun and will end on June 30th. Their second campaign has some new rules to incentivize new users to join. Check it out.
There are many ways to earn points with ether.fi but the most basic way to earn is to stake your $ETH with them. You can NOT earn points unless you are staking $ETH with them! For every 0.001 $ETH staked, you gain 1 point per day in the old campaign but the new campaign is giving out 10x more points. Besides staking $ETH there are a variety of things you can do to earn points including:
- Discord community tasks
- Purchasing their NFTs
- Social media tasks
- Referrals
- And more
Each task will give out different rates of points depending on its difficulty and how much ether.fi seems to care about it. For instance, the referral code will give 1000 points per 0.1 ETH staked from the referral but signing up with your email address will give 5000 points. None of the tasks seem overpowered and most of them give a reasonable amount of points.
Results of the Points Campaign
Here are some impressive metrics:
- Discord: 32K members
- X: 81K followers
- Telegram: 6K
- TVL: 3.2 Billion dollars worth of $ETH according to DefiLlama
It's difficult to know the actual user count of ether.fi but If they only have 32,000 users that means the average person put $38,000 into the protocol!
I don't want to give all of the credit to the points campaign. The team did a great job marketing the campaign by putting it on sites like airdrops.io and they had fantastic community management that led to their early users being enthusiastic supporters. But I think their ultimate success comes from having a great narrative, a great use case, and excellent UX design on their site.
The Secret of Their Success
What led me to ether.fi was that I could not stake on Eigenlayer. Eigenlayer limits how much $ETH can be staked by retail users but doesn't limit large nodes. This means that many users could not get on Eigenlayer but projects like ether.fi could onboard them. When I realized that I had "missed the boat" for Eigenlayer I did a little bit of extra research. I wasn't going to miss out on Restaking and getting one of the largest airdrops in the 2024 bull run that easily! I knew Eigenlayer had not cut out large nodes from adding more $ETH into their protocol so I thought there might be other ways to get on Eigenlayer... and I was right! The developers at ether.fi are smart. They saw a need and filled it. And that's the best marketing strategy there is.
What Can Other Projects Learn From This?
- Offer a use case that solves user problems
- Offer a generous points program that gives users several ways to earn
- Make sure the tasks benefit the protocol and the greater community
- Have great UX so users can easily access the protocol
- Make the rules clear
- You don't need to explain tokenomics upfront ether.fi merely promised an airdrop and the community followed. I had no idea there would be 1 billion token supply cap.
- Make certain you let the greater crypto community know you exist by posting to sites like airdrops.io
- A generous referral program goes a long way.
If you're launching a project check out ether.fi! They know what they're doing.
Join our Trading Community and Earn Airdrops!
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Finally, I do actively invest, so you should assume that anything I discuss I may also be trading or investing in. I can’t say for certain, since my trades are often quick, but just assume such to be safe about conflicts of interest.
