It seems you went on vacation after the massive bull run of 2017
Well; not much has changed

1. Bitcoin remains the best and there are 0.1% bounty that pays in bitcoin
2. Altcoins emerged as a quick rich form of investment; there are several pump and dump tokens
3. Regarding merits, the forum placed a new rule, newbie now needs 1 merit to get to junior member so as to improve the quality of discussions on the forum and so far it has worked I believe
4. If you go through the thread, you will realize that there are several Blockchain platforms under etherum, stellar, Blockchains and a lot of scam tokens too
5: I can say airdrop programs are technically dead because they bring no reward whatsoever (rewards are in 0.1$ - 1$)

In a nutshell, be careful now; frauds are everywhere, remember the simple rules in keeping your private key to your self