2020–2021 showered lots of crypto users with immense wealth with sizeable airdrops,In the piece,i will briefly speculate on some possible airdrops for 2022.and how you may position yourself and qualify.

What is an airdrop?

An airdrop refers to the means of rewarding users with a platform token for free. It may be retroactive(reward for platform contribution or usage in the past like as with Uniswap) or random(like with ecosystem airdrops within the Cosmos,Juno networks for stakers and LPs)

Some possible airdrops for 2022 and beyond

WALLETS

Metamask has 30 million + users, it is currently profitable thanks to its swap feature but it does not currently have a token but Joe Lubin has hinted at a $MASK token in the near future. The speculation behind $MASK is to decentralize the network like as with $ENS and also to give users an incentive to use the swap feature,as unlike other swap apps like Uniswap,1inch etc all have tokens and not having a token may not be good for competition in the near future.


Joe Lubin teases $MASK
 

• Exodus wallet did an sort of regulated offering telling us that most wallet in the near future will follow same route or do airdrops.

• Other wallets that may do a token drop include : Phantom wallet for solana apps, Keplr for cosmos, Argent wallet etc

• Existing wallets with tokens : Trustwallet ($TWT), XDeFi($XDEFI), Exodus

L2 NETWORKS

• Layer 2 networks are purportedly described as the holy grail of Ethereum scaling,these networks though still in their infancy have seen incredible growth in usage and TVL, while some have tokens,others do not and one way those without can stay competitive is through a token and since these platforms are currently live and working without a token,a retroactive airdrop is most likely going to happen.

• Also another reason for this argument is that most if not all of them have received some form of funding in the past.

• L2 network without a token(in red color)

• L2 networks that may do a token drop include : Arbitrum, Optimism, Zksync etc

• Existing L2 with tokens : Metis Andromeda ($METIS), Loopring($LRC), Boba Network($BOBA)

BRIDGES

As many L1 and L2 blockchains come onboard and fight for users attention,liquidity and funds is often fragmented and siloed,to help move funds from one chain to the other,a bridge is needed.


Some bridges currently have a token while others do not,others support liquidity provisioning and to further decentralize the process(bring in more validators) in other to prevent a Ronin kind of hack incidence,a bridge with considerable traction without a token may do an airdrop

• Bridges that may do a token drop include : Hop protocol, Connext, Wormhole etc

• Existing bridges with tokens : Celer network ($CELER), Multichain($MULTI)

DEFI DASHBOARDS

They are increasing becoming useful,you can view all your tokens,transactions on all supported chains in one place,also many support activities like swaps,liquidity provisioning etc

• Dashboards that may do a token drop include : Zerion, ZapperFi, DeFisaver , Waterfall etc

PUBLIC GOODS

Some persons in the past have been airdropped tokens for contributing to some gitcoin grants in the past,so funding some in the future may cause the goddess of luck favor you with some airdrops,maybe.

ANALYTICS/EXPLORERS

On this segment i am not to sure to speculative if such may happen or how it may happen in the near future.

• Some that may do a token drop include : Etherscan, Coingecko, DappRadar

Existing ones with tokens : Dappradar($RADAR)

NFT AIRDROPS

NFTs are evolving,since they embody community, giving NFTs airdrop for holding an NFT is currently been done by some NFT projects,others like Altered state machine,Bored Ape Yacht Club went the token route or others like CyberKongz give daily token rewards for simply holding the NFT.

• Some that may do a token drop include : Opensea, Foundation,Gems

• Existing ones with tokens : Looksrare($LOOKS),Rarible($RARI)

ECOSYSTEM AIRDROPS

These are airdrops done to attract users from other communities to a particular community inorder to have a stronger and more loyal community through incentives. $NEO was very good at these in its early days. Today by simply providing LPs on some Dex or staking or even holding a platform token may qualify you for token airdrops

• Some tokens that may do a qualify you for token airdrop(for staking,holding or doing LP) include : ATOM, SCRT, JUNO,Evmos etc

GAME AIRDROPS

By just playing a game with no token yet may qualify you for an airdrop like we saw with Gods unchained and other games.

• Existing ones with tokens : Gods unchained($GODS),Axie infinity($AXIE)

Why airdrops

1. Tokenization : Anything and everything that has value will be tokenized.
2. Funding : Anything that has some funding(either VCs or angel investors) or self funding that has gained reasonable traction will most likely do an airdrop in the future.
3. Marketing and incentives : Incentives are what drive people,now it’s not enough that people use a dapp,they want some form of incentives
4. Community : For ownership and governance
5. Bootstrap a network : sometimes to bootstrap a network from scratch may be through an airdrop like we say with forks(bitcoin,ethereum forks etc)

How to make the most of airdrops

1. Utility : Stake,Hold,trade(buy/sell), do LP
2. Vote : Be active on forums,vote on proposals
3. Community : Contribute to the general discussion,be on discord(like with Element Finance),sign up for newsletters(like with Ontology),follow on twitter etc

WEB3 rewards those who make contributions,so ask not what web3 can do for you but what you can do for web3