The Top Airdrop Hunts of the Month: August 2024
Tired of wasting time and money chasing worthless airdrops that never seem to live up to the hype? You’re not alone.
Airdrop fatigue is setting in across the crypto industry as hunters find themselves disappointed with allocations from the few drops that do occur and disillusioned with nebulous promises that fail to materialize.
While increasing competitiveness has rendered easy five-figure Jito-style payouts a memory of the distant past, it remains possible to come out ahead by participating in airdrop opportunities! We have over 100 tokenless protocols in the Airdrop Hunter, but to get access to our exclusive airdrop hunting strategies, you need to be a Bankless Citizen!
Today, we’re exploring five airdrop hunts that we think are the best and biggest opportunities to focus on this month 👇
🧬 Mellow Finance
Sector: Restaking
TVL: $771.4M
Chain: Ethereum
Website | Twitter
About:
Mellow Protocol provides a modular and permissionless infrastructure for Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRTs) on any staking protocol and allows users to choose their level of risk through curated vaults. Mellow's vision aligns with Symbiotic's, enabling true permissionless restaking flexibility. Further, as a partner of the Lido Alliance, Mellow helps Lido operators launch their own LRTs, boosting stETH usability and adding revenue for Lido DAO members.
Why we’re bullish:
Mellow Protocol was launched alongside Symbiotic, the new Paradigm-backed and Lido-partnered EigenLayer competitor, as a restaking project in its ecosystem. Currently, Mellow is running a points program that incentivizes depositors from both Mellow and Symbiotic, with the implication being that the program will translate to liquid token allocations in the future.
While stETH holders were only able to earn airdrop exposure to a single opportunity under the EigenLayer direct restaking regime, they can earn both Mellow and Symbiotic points by utilizing Mellow, incentivizing an increased amount of capital to restake with the protocol.
🍁 Syrup Finance
Sector: Lending
TVL: $15.4M
Chain: Ethereum
Website | Twitter
About:
Syrup Finance offers users a retail-friendly USDC vault that re-lends deposits at an over-collateralized ratio against crypto assets through existing Maple Finance vaults. In Q4 2024, Maple and Syrup Finance intend to merge, hoping to broaden access, facilitate growth, and invigorate the community under the unified Syrup brand.
Why we’re watching:
For users seeking high yields from their airdrops, Syrup is a leading opportunity; depositors currently receive both high yields from Maple borrowers and a guaranteed airdrop.
MIP-009, which passed in August 2023, authorized a 23% increase to the MPL supply by 2025 to be utilized for growth incentives. Early USDC depositors into Syrup will be rewarded with Drips, its version of points, with boosted allocations for increased lock durations. MPL is expected to be converted 1:1 to SYRUP in Q4 2024, and Drips accrued by users will be redeemable for the new token in unknown quantities at this point.
☯️ Suilend
Sector: Lending
TVL: $37.6M
Chain: Sui
Website | Twitter
About:
Suilend is one of the largest lending protocols on the Sui blockchain. It was developed by the same team behind Solend, a leading lending protocol on Solana. By launching on Sui, Suilend seeks to leverage its successful track record from Solana to establish itself as a prominent cross-chain money market for the developing chain.
Why we’re watching:
Suilend users receive additional yield and airdrop exposure for Sui-native assets that cannot be deposited elsewhere. While the Suilend points program is expected to run for several months, in announcing the campaign, its founder indicated their disdain for points programs, potentially translating to a shorter campaign duration than usual.
💸 Ethena
Sector: Stablecoins
TVL: $3.21B
Chain: Ethereum
Website | Twitter
About:
Ethena creates its synthetic dollar stablecoin, USDe, by going long spot crypto assets and shorting an equivalent amount through perps on centralized exchange venues. In environments where funding rates are positive (i.e.; longs are paying shorts), Ethena can pay out stakers extremely high yields compared to other stablecoins, as the protocol earns interest through both staking and the funding payments from its short positions.
While historically positive funding rates provide tailwinds for Ethena, its holders are at risk of accruing negative interest if staking yields are inadequate to offset a prolonged period of negative funding rates. Because Ethena's delta-neutral model enabled it to adopt a bare minimum 100% collateralization ratio, the protocol enjoys a much higher degree of capital efficiency compared to competitive overcollateralized projects.
Why we’re watching:
While Ethena has already conducted a first round of airdrops, distributing 750M ENA to participants in the Shard Campaign, this only represents 16.6% of the token allocations set aside for ecosystem development and airdrops!
To celebrate the introduction of Bitcoin as collateral for its stablecoin, Ethena is conducting a second season of points distributions, their Sats Campaign, which will run until the September 2 or the protocol reaches $5B in TVL and disburse ENA tokens as rewards to participants shortly thereafter.
Ethena depositors can earn heightened stablecoin yields for holding staked USDe and accrue airdrop points exposure regardless of how they participate; these incentives appear likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
⚡ Snapshot
Sector: Lending
TVL: N/A
Chain: Ethereum
Website | Twitter
About:
Snapshot is an onchain voting platform for DAOs, DeFi protocols, and other types of onchain communities. The platform was designed with flexibility in mind so it could cater to the diverse needs of its users and provides numerous customizations for all aspects of the voting, calculation, and implementation process.
Why we’re watching:
Although Snapshot has not announced an airdrop, the protocol's Twitter account has provided multiple indications that it is seeking to launch a token in the near future. Crypto projects frequently distribute tokens to their earliest users via airdrop when choosing to launch one.
By participating in Snapshot voting for communities that you already belong to, you can position yourself to receive a future airdrop for no cost while making your voice heard by contributing to onchain governance!