Quote from: randomhumster on April 11, 2018, 10:11:05 AM

Cryptocurrency Airdrops are popular within our community, but what we know about them? Why is it sometimes dangerous to participate in them? What is an airdrop? How to profit from airdrops? You will find answers for all your questions in this thread. If you dont, you can ask your question in comments.

Who issues airdrops?

Airdrops can be issued by the following parties:

ICO project. 90% of all airdrops are issued by new ICOs. The team uses airdrops to promote the project.
Existing cryptocurrency. Sometimes an altcoin that is on the market for years can issue an airdrop. It is done to build a stronger community, or serves a certain aim. For example, the team may need people to vote for exchange listing and reward users with their coins/tokens.
Hard fork team. Weve seen a lot of hard forks lately. New coins are distributed to original token holders according to predefined proportion.

Why projects issue airdrops?

Airdrop is a promotion. It can serve the following goals:

Spread the news about the project. It is an easy way to reach thousands of people through social networks.
Build community in social accounts. It is the fastest way to get followers on twitter, members on telegram group and etc. A project needs a community as all potential investors look at it. It also helps to spread news.
Create user base. Any token/coin/platform needs users. Airdrop helps to get many users at the very beginning.
Get people to pass KYC. Some airdrops require to pass through KYC. It is done for several reasons. Some projects need to ensure people from restricted areas do not participate. Some simply want to push you to invest in their project.

Is an airdrop a free money?

No. Airdrops are reward for doing tasks: join telegram group, follow twitter, repost, invite other people, post something, subscribe for email and etc. You do the task and get your reward (possibly get your reward). Sometimes the reward is equal for the task, sometimes you get more for a simple tasks, sometimes you are asked to pass KYC for 1$.

Who benefits from airdrops?

The main benefiter of any airdrop is the issuer. For scam ICO airdrop is the best way to promote itself. Always remember this. The next benefiters are airdrop aggregators. There are a lot of telegram groups, twitter accounts and etc. that post airdrop notifications. 4 out of 5 airdrops have a referral system. When you reference another person you get some token as a reward. A popular aggregator can have hundreds or thousands referrals. If they receive 0.1 3 USD for each referral you can make a profitable business out of it. The last benefiters are airdrop participants. They can earn some tokens that can potentially cost something.

Who can participate in an airdrop?

Usually airdrops follow the same rules as ICO. If you can participate in an ICO, you can also participate in airdrop. If you live in a country banned from participating in an ICO like USA or China you may be banned from airdrop as well.

What do you need to participate in an airdrop?

Minimal requirements to participate in an airdrop is to have an email account and cryptocurrency wallet (ETH address is the most used). For most airdrops you will also need social accounts: telegram, twitter, facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Instagram and etc.

How to check an airdrop before participating?

The same way as you would use for an ICO. Check vision, whitepaper, rating and so on. As you are not investing in an ICO, you dont need to spend much time. Try to check ICO profile on platforms like ICObench. If project has a garbage rating, you dont need its tokens. They will not cost anything and will never hit a good exchange. Check estimated value yourself. Airdrop aggregators usually give it. Check token price on ICO and multiply it on the amount of tokens you will get. Remember, that this estimation will not be correct for a bad project. If token will never hit a major exchange it will not cost anything. Also keep in mind that exchanges can have deposit minimum value. For example you can receive 50 tokens from an airdrop, and deposit minimum is 100 tokens.

How to find airdrops?

The best way is to follow airdrop aggregators. You dont need to waste your own time.

How to get your tokens?

It depends on an airdrop. If it is an ERC20 token, it will be sent to your ETH address. If it is a token from other platform like NEO, Waves it will be sent to a corresponding wallet. If it is a coin, it will be sent via its own blockchain. If an airdrop was initiated on exchange/platform, tokens/coins will be on your exchange/platform account.

How to sell airdrop tokens/coins?

If it is a normal project it will hit an exchange where you can sell your tokens. Some tokens can be sold on DEXes like Forkdelta, IDEX and etc. Most airdrop tokens cant be sold at all as they were issued by a scam project and dont have any value at all.

Can you be scammed by an airdrop?

Yes, some airdrops are pure scam. They are issued to steal your personal data, your social accounts or your cryptocurrency. You should treat any airdrop as possible scam and protect yourself.

What rules should you follow to protect yourself?

There are many rules to follow. I will give the major ones with some explanations.

Never use your real email. Do you like spam? You will get a lot of spam mails on this account. Also your real email is used on exchanges and social accounts. Dont give it to anyone if you dont want to lose your accounts.
Dont use your main crypto address. You may need to use it of DEXes and you can be easily robbed.
Never use your other passwords. If you need to subscribe with a password, never use a password you are using on your phone, PC, social account, exchange and etc. Scammers will use it to rob you.
Airdrops dont ask for money or private keys. If you are asked to give transfer your money to get more money, it is probably a scam.
Protect your personal data. Dont give too much of your personal data for a few dollars. It can be used against you.

Disclaimer: Everything writtent in this thread is my personal opinion and expirience. It is not a financial advice of any kind.

In a shorter version. Airdrops are not profitable, in most situations all drops prove to be a scam and bring no profit. Now nobody want give you money for free so you have very small chance to get anything