Author: Nancy, PANews

"The bull market speculates on coins, and the bear market collects airdrops" is a popular saying in the industry. Airdrop collection is considered a low-cost way to get rich, especially with the stimulus of airdrops such as dYdx, Arbitrum, and Aptos, the army of airdrop collectors has followed suit, and it has even evolved into "airdrop hunters" with professional equipment and resources.

However, it is not easy to collect a "big wool" among a large number of projects. Recently, disappointing airdrops such as CyberConnect and Sei have left many airdrop collectors with no profits and even negative returns. As a result, some studios have begun to lay off employees or even shut down and transform, leading to increasingly negative voices about the airdrop collection industry. Will the airdrop collection industry really face a large-scale shutdown? What is the real operation of these studios? This article from PANews interviewed multiple airdrop collection studios, some of which declined the interview and frankly admitted that they are at risk of bankruptcy due to not having collected a big wool yet, some have preemptively predicted the risk and transformed early, and some are focusing on mainnet projects with relatively low witch identification risks, and they still have confidence in the development of the airdrop collection industry.

The super high returns come from early participation, usually directly cashed out

Compared to those who entered the industry recently due to the wealth effect of airdrops, the interviewees in this article, Mr. Dong (pseudonym) and the Web3 Blue Sky Studio, are early participants with many years of airdrop collection experience.

Mr. Dong joined the airdrop army in 2018 due to Dfinity ($ICP) and established the studio in early 2020. Mr. Dong revealed to PANews that currently, his studio has a team of 30 to 40 people, and in addition to Chengdu and Vietnam, a team in Singapore is also under construction. In their business, activities such as airdrop arbitrage are collectively referred to as execution-type businesses, such as interactive airdrops, testnet nodes, and initial offerings, and these three major categories are further divided into many smaller categories.

According to Mr. Dong, his studio is a high-frequency participant in the early token public offering platform CoinList, and they were among the first batch, almost not missing any projects. "At its peak, we had over ten thousand accounts in line." In the projects they participated in, Mr. Dong revealed that the airdrop probability was relatively high from 2020 to 2022, and they usually sell the airdrops directly for profit after receiving them. The project with the highest return is Aptos ($APT), "Since we applied for the testnet and claimed NFTs, we had no other costs besides labor and server expenses, and the average profit per account is around 1500U."

Similarly, the Web3 Blue Sky Studio is also an early participant in CoinList, a small team of 6 people that mainly focuses on deep interaction with 4000 zkSync wallets. The studio has been participating in initial offerings since 2021, with over 10,000 accounts at the time. They usually sell the airdrops directly for cash after receiving them, with an overall profit of about 10 million RMB. Among them, the platform made the most profit on Arbitrum and Aptos, with $2 million and $400,000, respectively.

Based on years of airdrop collection experience, Mr. Dong frankly stated that their costs mainly come from manpower and servers, and the time cost is also high because the airdrop period for many projects is long, and some projects they participated in were not distributed until two or three years later. The Web3 Blue Sky Studio also stated that airdrop collection is a project with short-term invisible returns, and many people find it difficult to persist.

Dealing with "witches" in the right way

For airdrop collectors, in addition to the uncertainty of airdrops and the basic risks of asset theft and fraud from high-frequency on-chain interactions, the difficulty of airdrop collection is also increasing with each airdrop.

Currently, more and more project teams and data analysis platforms are launching their own anti-witch standards and identification functions, which also expose them to the risk of no profit or even negative returns. For example, in December 2022, DeBank introduced the witch address tagging feature; in March of this year, Arbitrum detected nearly 150,000 wallet addresses that met the airdrop criteria, accounting for over 20% of the total airdrop, through anti-witch measures; and recently, the multi-chain trading infrastructure zkLink introduced a new loyalty points system 2.0 as proof of participation in its ecosystem and introduced strict anti-cheating measures, which not only deducts points and issues warnings to first-time offenders but also blacklists users who persist in cheating after receiving warnings, canceling their qualifications.

Faced with increasingly stringent anti-witch rules, the probability of earning profits through airdrop collection will be further reduced. Therefore, the Web3 Blue Sky Studio chooses to participate in mainnet airdrop projects and reduce investment costs by judging certain projects. "The more PUA projects, the more problems such as witches. The cost of on-chain airdrop collection will become higher in the future, and anti-witch rules will not only be limited to on-chain data, but facial recognition will also become a trend."

"To survive, a studio not only needs money but also the infrastructure required for airdrop collection. Third-party solutions are not reliable, self-built is the only way." Mr. Dong's studio has launched a technical department for developing its own cloud systems, independent fingerprints, independent devices, and independent IPs, which are stored in the cloud and can be accessed online anytime, anywhere.

The trend of professionalization within studios, and even the launch of airdrop collection SaaS platforms

Recently, with the weak cryptocurrency market and the lack of airdrop intensity in many projects, the accelerated reshuffle of the airdrop market has put many studios at risk of transformation or closure, leading to negative sentiments about the airdrop collection industry. In response, Mr. Dong stated that it is normal for studios to fail to make money and face closure due to impatience, lack of funds, and luck under FOMO sentiment.

"In unknown circumstances, studios do not need to expand blindly, and should focus on wallet isolation and anti-witch measures. Especially at this stage, it is not recommended for ordinary users to enter, as IP, fingerprint browsers, Twitter, and GMail all involve significant costs," pointed out the Web3 Blue Sky Studio during the interview.

In fact, as the current airdrop industry is showing a high degree of internal competition, "airdrop collectors" are becoming more professional, and their businesses are becoming increasingly diverse, even including professional airdrop collection and training courses.

Recently, the head of the Benshi community, Super Jun, tweeted, "The airdrop collection studios of several friends around me are not only not going to close, but are becoming more and more professional, and the personnel are constantly being upgraded. On the one hand, they have made a lot of money in projects like ARB and SUI; on the other hand, they also engage in DeFi and arbitrage, and there is no problem making money to support the studio."

Mr. Dong also revealed to PANews that in the second half of 2022, on the one hand, they have stopped participating in a large number of projects, unless the probability of airdrops is high; on the other hand, they have begun to seek new paths and have achieved initial success. According to Mr. Dong, their main business now includes not only airdrop collection but also the SaaS system service department for airdrop collection, the KYC department, and the MCN department under construction, which are open to the public.

At the same time, Mr. Dong also stated during the interview that the threshold for airdrop collection will become higher in the future, requiring not only money but also talent and infrastructure. Therefore, during the bear market, it is better for everyone to learn more and act less, and cultivate talent. However, he also pointed out that airdrops, testnet rewards, various IDOs, etc., are all ways for projects to distribute tokens, and as long as there are new projects listed, there will be these behaviors, and there will be arbitrage opportunities. The airdrop collection industry will not disappear or come to a standstill; what will come to a standstill is the high enthusiasm and the cries of new studios.

In conclusion, in the future, project teams will only adopt more stringent review mechanisms, which also means that airdrop collection studios lacking risk management awareness and financial reserves will have a smaller space for survival. However, airdrop collectors are already an important part of the cryptocurrency project ecosystem, and they still need airdrop collectors to set the stage for their development.

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