{"id":80821,"date":"2023-06-27T13:58:44","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T10:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=80821"},"modified":"2025-09-11T19:18:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:18:31","slug":"experts-assess-incomes-of-airdrop-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/experts-assess-incomes-of-airdrop-hunters\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts assess incomes of airdrop hunters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The average income of a standard <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-cryptocurrency-airdrop\">airdrops<\/a> hunter per address was $9,384 (median $6,497). For the premium segment, the corresponding figures were $18,935 and $14,288, according to a joint study by X-explore and journalist Colin Wu.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Research on &#8220;Airdrop Experts&#8221; by X-explore<\/p>\n<p>Found 34,547 Standard Airdrop Hunter addresses, with per address of $9,384 and a median airdrop income per address of $6,497; 932 addresses of Premium Airdrop Hunters, per address of $18,935. <\/p>\n<p>Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8yx5bMjGeH\">https:\/\/t.co\/8yx5bMjGeH<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MjNmLxRFSU\">pic.twitter.com\/MjNmLxRFSU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WuBlockchain\/status\/1673274795524509697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 26, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Experts noted that after the <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/uniswap-launches-uni-governance-token\">Uniswap airdrop<\/a> in 2020, the strategy of rewarding early users with tokens gained popularity in the <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/what-is-web3\">Web3<\/a> industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However the practice of free distribution of assets led to the emergence of a category of &#8216;drop hunters&#8217;. According to researchers, up to 20% of the volume of the <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/arbitrum-network-stalls-amid-arb-token-airdrop\">Arbitrum airdrop<\/a> in March was claimed by so-called &#8216;free riders&#8217;, using the <span data-descr=\"a type of attack in a P2P network, in which the victim connects only to nodes controlled by an attacker\" class=\"old_tooltip\">Sybil attack<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Experts attempted to profile these &#8216;drop hunters&#8217; and forecast what their future &#8216;targets&#8217; would be. The researchers analyzed five airdrops with more than 100,000 participating addresses and distributions exceeding $140 million each. The projects involved were Uniswap, ENS, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/optimism-team-carried-out-airdrop-of-native-token\">Optimism<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/media-blur-valuation-rises-to-1-billion-amid-airdrop-reports-say\">Blur<\/a> and Arbitrum.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts categorized addresses that participated in three of the five airdrops as &#8216;standard&#8217; hunters (34,547 addresses). The &#8216;premium&#8217; group took part in all five airdrops and received tokens. The latter comprised 932 addresses.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers noted that, in fact, most drop hunters are early Ethereum users. They exhibit much greater activity on NFT platforms and <span data-descr=\"decentralized exchanges\" class=\"old_tooltip\">DEX<\/span>, trading, and maintain engagement in projects after receiving tokens. <\/p>\n<p>For example, more than 95% of addresses in the premium group are among the top 10% by trading volume on decentralized exchanges. For NFT marketplaces, this figure stands at 68%.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/GyL2wptuVrXnJvEF3rzB8A4OaV0RHVH7wu_XB-csbGSDkjVEpHgr1a5KUR2hKVbftmOvtowTJFWdq7Hfgr0l5qyAoUlaZH5B83Dpj7RIi8SAa0IHYDOKSOyrGtHd7AnTlQG3xn8igR4L2oJa078muwk\" alt=\"Experts assessed the incomes of airdrop hunters\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Data: X-explore.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the view of the experts, given the identified features, projects may modify airdrop rules to have a &#8216;positive impact on hunters&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding their likely future targets, researchers identified activity of tracked addresses in the following projects across separate domains:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>DeFi: Uniswap, SushiSwap, 0x, MetaMask Swap, Balancer, 1inch, Paraswap, Aave, Rarible, InstaDApp, dYdX, Compound;<\/li>\n<li>NFT: OpenSea, Blur, LooksRare, X2Y2, Foundation;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-layer%e2%80%912-solution-in-blockchain\">L2 solutions<\/a> and cross-chain protocols: Arbitrum, Polygon, ZkSync Lite, Optimism, HOP, ZkSync Era, Starknet;<\/li>\n<li><span data-descr=\"decentralized applications\" class=\"old_tooltip\">dapps<\/span>: DeBank.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In most cases, drop hunters periodically perform transactions of little economic significance.<\/p>\n<p>ForkLog <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/arbitrum-nova-and-zksync-ultra-low-fees-and-the-prospect-of-a-generous-airdrop\">reported<\/a> on two L2 protocols \u2014 Arbitrum Nova and zkSync, where token airdrops are likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The average income of a standard {{AOPEN_1}}airdrops{{ACLOSE_1}} hunter per address was $9,384 (median $6,497). For the premium segment, the corresponding figures were $18,935 and $14,288, according to a joint study by X-explore and Colin Wu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1158,167],"class_list":["post-80821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-airdrops","tag-research"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"153","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80823,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80821\/revisions\/80823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}