What are airdrops?
Airdrops are a tactic that various crypto creators use to promote their product.
This kind of marketing involves sending coins or tokens to wallet addresses for free so that they start becoming known in the market. Handing out cryptocurrency for free also helps give a token some early value, as recipients may start trading their airdropped tokens.
Small amounts of coins are sent to the wallets of active members of the blockchain community, either for free or in exchange for a small task, such as resharing a post by the company issuing the coin.
Most people in crypto love airdrops simply because they see them as free money. In some cases these free coins can suddenly jump in value, delivering huge gains with zero capital and a bit of luck.
Well-known projects that started out as airdrops:
cryptonomy will show you the latest airdrops that are starting or about to end. Every week we will update our list and remove the ones that have expired. We would like to let you know, however, that we are under huge pressure to finish our website, so we have not properly vetted the projects we feature.
Put simply, what we want to say is DYOR (do your own research): before you join any airdrop, read the paragraph below and make sure you understand it before handing over your details.
WARNING!!!
Not all airdrops are well-intentioned, so be careful which airdrops you sign up for.
- If an airdrop requires you to send money or crypto to a wallet, it is almost certainly a scam.
- Some airdrops act as a trojan horse to get hold of your personal data. If someone has your personal details, you can fall victim to dusting attacks.
In a dusting attack, you receive a tiny fraction of crypto in your wallet, which exposes your public address to a potential scammer or hacker. Once a scammer or hacker has your public address, they can easily check what your wallet holds using tools such as a blockchain explorer.
If you hold a valuable amount of crypto at that address, you could be targeted with phishing, SIM swaps and other hacking or extortion attempts aimed at getting you to hand over your wallet keys, willingly or not.
Our goal is not to scare you, but to remind you that entering the world of cryptocurrency also means entering a new world with new (now digital) forms of fraud.
cryptonomy recommends that you always be careful when taking part in airdrops:
- Create a second Twitter account that you use only for airdrops. Never post your personal details on that account.
- Create a wallet used only for airdrops.
- Create a new email address used only for airdrops.
- Never use your phone for blockchain matters; ideally, use a PC running Linux.
- Go here to check whether your personal data has been leaked on the black market.