Greetings dear readers! Today we want to change your perspective on retrodrops and discuss how Starknet has influenced the future of retrodrops? The article will be useful for those who want to understand what retrodrop is and how it works, as well as for old-timers who want to earn more money! Let’s go!
Retrodrops – what are they?
Retrodrops, or the free distribution of tokens by a crypto project among its users, have become one of the most popular methods of earning money in the world of cryptocurrencies. This trend was set by DEX exchange Uniswap, which released and ran a giveaway of UNI tokens among users. In the bull market of 2021, the UNI exchange rate exceeded $40 and the earnings of the exchange’s lucky users totalled thousands of dollars.
Retrodrops provide a unique opportunity for users to earn profits without investment, simply for using a project or blockchain. They have become popular among various crypto projects that are looking to attract new users and reward existing ones.
Retrodrops not only help spread the project’s token to a wider audience, but also create an incentive for active participation in the network. This helps to increase user engagement and interest in the project as a whole.
Thus, retrodrops become not only a tool for attracting new users, but also a powerful incentive for the development and growth of crypto projects in the modern world.
Since the emergence of the trend of retrodrops, users have been actively creating as many different wallets as possible, trading on various DEX exchanges, conducting NFT mines and so on in the hope of a subsequent drop. And these expectations are often justified. Nevertheless, despite all the efforts, the MetaMask wallet never came to fruition: there were a lot of rumours, but the token never appeared.
New cryptoprojects often prefer retrodrops, as it helps them get user activity, which in turn helps them gain popularity in front of investors and exchanges. At the same time, the project is not obliged to provide users with any bonuses at all, and some of them do not make any payments even after promises.
It should also be noted that retrodrops are not always free, as the commission (especially on the Ethereum network) requires additional costs. In addition, developers rarely provide drop conditions in advance, so getting a drop becomes something of a lottery for users.
Breaking down the criteria and mechanics of such projects can help users understand current activity and make more informed decisions.
Here are eight examples of the best retrodrops in cryptocurrency history:
- Arbitrum: This project held the largest drop in history. To receive the drop, users had to fulfil certain conditions such as interacting with smart contracts and volumes of funds on the network.
- Uniswap: The world’s first airdrop, which became the benchmark for many subsequent giveaways. The terms were fairly simple: users who interacted with the platform at least once received 400 UNI, and SOCKS token holders and liquidity providers received additional tokens.
- Ethereum Name Service (ENS): To receive the drop, you simply needed to possess a name domain. Primary domain holders were given a multiplier and 25% of the total tokens were allocated to this drop.
- dYdX: The tokens were allocated using roughly the same criteria as Uniswap – trading on the platform, as well as borrowing and providing liquidity to pools.
- Optimism: This project continues to conduct retrodrops until now. Active OP Mainnet users, DAO participants and donors in Gitcoin have received drops.
- BLUR: BLUR proposed new airdrop mechanics based on platform usage. Users receive tokens for actively using the platform’s functionality.
- Gitcoin: The developer support platform distributed 15 million GTC tokens to active platform users and projects.
- Aptos: This project started the current narrative of retrodrops. For an NFT minte or testnet activity, users could receive up to $3600 in ATH per account.
Examining these examples leads to several conclusions. An important success factor is active participation in the life of the project, be it providing liquidity, participating in voting or providing other services. You should also pay attention to multipliers, which often depend on volume and constant activity in the project.
Although a16z is missing from the list of funds that have handed out the most drops, Paradigm remains the leader, providing lots of tokens and often. Polychain Capital is also worth keeping an eye on. Interestingly, among the eight major airdrops, only three projects are blockchain, so it’s important to pay attention not only to the blockchain but also to the applications.
How Starknet has influenced the future of retrodrops
The launch of the STRK cryptocurrency token from the Starknet project on the exchange was one of the significant events in the cryptosphere. Nevertheless, the revenue from its retrodrop for many users was lower than expected. Will subsequent retrodrops be able to repeat the same success?
STRK’s entry to the exchange was not without adventures. Despite preliminary discussions and announcements, not all users managed to get rewards due to the strict criteria set by the project.
As of this writing, the Starknet blockchain has over 8 million active addresses and over 100 million transactions conducted. Nevertheless, even with this amount of activity, only 20% of users have been retrodropped. This is because the main criterion for receiving a drop was to have a minimum amount of ETH on their balance at the time of the snapshot.
Despite the outrage in the cryptocurrency community, the Starknet team did not change their decision. This caused a wave of discontent and raised questions about the fairness and transparency of the process.
Onchain activity is more important than sociality
A similar scenario to Starknet is being followed by other projects seeking to retrodrop such as Orbiter, Linea, zkSync and Scroll. They offer a wide range of social tasks and quests for users, including activities on Zealy, Guild, Galxe platforms, participation in the projects’ official Discord channels, and having a Galxe Passport or Gitcoin Passport, etc.
Whether these social tasks will have an impact on future retrodrops is still a live debate. Nevertheless, analysing retrodrop cases from Optimism, Arbitrum, Starknet, it can be seen that onchain activity had a major impact on the distribution of rewards. This trend is likely to continue, and social quests will rather have an additional character, for example, in the form of a multiplier for drops.
Developers get more
In the case of Starknet, the minimum number of coins per wallet was approximately 500 STRK tokens, nevertheless some users received significantly more – from 3,000 to 6,000 coins. Retrodrops were particularly beneficial for GitHub developers and users actively interacting with smart contracts (e.g., performing deploys, updates, and making suggestions).
Notably, even before the retrodrop, the Starknet team announced separate rewards for blockchain experts, and such reward programmes have become increasingly common. For example, the Scroll project recently announced special rewards programmes for developers on its Twitter feed. Nevertheless, after this GitHub announcement, Scroll faced an attack by several thousand spam offers.
The longer the interaction, the bigger the drop is
Starknet’s three-month interaction criterion raises questions about the length of the interaction. What is one quarter?
Projects like zkSync Era and Arbitrum Nova have been in operation for almost a year and a year and a half respectively. Then there are projects like Linea and Base, launched as early as 2023. They could quite logically make the drop criteria a period of 4, 5 or more months of network usage, which would help fight multi-accounts.
Therefore, it is recommended to actively engage with the network by making several transactions per month, and preferably at least one transaction per week. There is also a theory that the criterion for future retros could be the number of active days, which would make it less likely for users who make a huge number of transactions in a short period of time to receive rewards.
Some will be left with nothing
LayerZero currently has over 8 million active addresses, while Scroll users are around 3 million and zkSync Era has 5 million. In the case of retrodrop before such projects, their developers will be faced with the choice of either distributing the rewards to a large number of traders or increasing the rewards for each individual user.
Not knowing the criteria for a retrodrop before it takes place means that many users may be left without rewards. Therefore, the main advice would be to actively participate on different accounts to minimise the risk of going empty.
Are cryptocurrency networks of no use to anyone?
Analysing Starknet statistics shows a clear correlation between trader activity and retrodrop. Before the announcement of the snapshot at the end of last year, the average volume of the trading on the network exceeded $300 million per day. Nevertheless, after December 2023, this figure rarely exceeded $100 million per day, except for the moments related to the token listing on 20 February.
A similar dynamic in the number of active wallets can be observed on Starknet
Until December, the number of active wallets per day exceeded 150,000, while in January-February this number was around 40,000 (with a spike in listing activity). This data suggests that interest in the Starknet blockchain was mainly due to the possibility of getting retrodropped, and interest in the network waned after the distribution of rewards.
A bull market is the best opportunity for a listing
Starknet chose the optimal time to list its token. At that time, bitcoin had reached a two-year high, trading volumes remained high, the number of users and overall market liquidity continued to grow, and new projects were successfully entering the exchanges.
This circumstance suggests that in the next 2-3 months we can expect new projects to be released and retrodrops to be distributed. This is beneficial for both traders and projects, as liquidity and interest in new tokens is much higher against the backdrop of a bull market.
Conclusion:
Retrodrops are an integral part of the modern cryptocurrency world, which continues to attract the attention of market participants with its unique opportunity to get tokens for free or for minimal actions. Studying the experience of past retrodrops and observing current trends allows us to draw a number of important conclusions and assumptions about the future of this important phenomenon.
Importantly, retrodrops have the potential to become a powerful tool for attracting and retaining users in blockchain projects. They incentivise user activity and participation, which promotes liquidity and ecosystem development.
Nevertheless, the terms and conditions of retrodrops can vary significantly depending on the specific project. Some may set strict requirements to obtain tokens, while others may be more loyal and offer rewards for simple actions.
Given the active development of the cryptocurrency market and the emergence of new projects, we can expect to see further growth in interest in retrodrops. They will continue to play an important role in the cryptosphere, attracting new participants and contributing to the development of the blockchain ecosystem.
Thus, retrodrops remain one of the most promising tools to stimulate activity and attract users to the cryptocurrency industry.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Retrodrops
- What is a retrodrop?
- A retrodrop is a method used by crypto projects to distribute tokens among their users for free or for minimal actions, such as using the project’s platform or blockchain.
- How do retrodrops work?
- Retrodrops are typically initiated by crypto projects looking to attract new users or reward existing ones. Users may need to meet certain criteria, such as interacting with the project’s platform, holding a specific amount of tokens, or participating in community activities, to receive retrodrop tokens.
- Are retrodrops always free?
- While retrodrops themselves are free in the sense that users don’t have to pay for the tokens they receive, there may be associated costs, such as transaction fees on the blockchain network where the retrodrop is conducted.
- What are some examples of successful retrodrops?
- Examples of successful retrodrops include those conducted by projects like Uniswap, Arbitrum, Ethereum Name Service (ENS), dYdX, Optimism, BLUR, Gitcoin, and Aptos. These retrodrops have helped attract users and promote the projects’ ecosystems.
- How can users increase their chances of receiving retrodrop tokens?
- To increase their chances of receiving retrodrop tokens, users can actively engage with the project’s platform or blockchain, participate in community activities, and hold the required amount of tokens if specified by the project.
- What should users be aware of when participating in retrodrops?
- Users should be aware of the criteria set by the project conducting the retrodrop, as well as any associated costs or risks, such as transaction fees and the potential for scams or fraudulent schemes posing as retrodrops.
- Are retrodrops a sustainable way to distribute tokens?
- Retrodrops can be a sustainable way to distribute tokens if conducted transparently and fairly, with clear criteria and objectives set by the project. However, they should be used as part of a broader strategy to engage users and grow the project’s ecosystem.
- What is the future outlook for retrodrops in the cryptocurrency industry?
- Retrodrops are likely to continue playing an important role in the cryptocurrency industry, as they provide a way for projects to attract and retain users. However, the terms and conditions of retrodrops may evolve over time as projects experiment with different approaches to token distribution.
