Bankless: Counting the five most eye-catching airdrops in 2024

Author: Jack Inabinet, Bankless; Compiler: Wu Baht, Golden Finance

In 2024, cryptocurrency developers have mastered the art of airdrops. Many protocol teams have capitalized on the bullish momentum across the industry and attracted a flood of new users chasing airdropped tokens.

From STRK’s disappointing performance to record-breaking hype, each protocol’s differentiated approach to token placement reveals valuable insights into how token distribution shapes ecosystems, sparks innovation, and catalyzes broader market trends.

Today, we discuss the impact of five of the most interesting airdrops in 2024.

Jupiter (JUP)

On January 31, Jupiter's first airdrop put 1 billion JUP into the hands of early users. This is the first of four annual airdrop events, which will end at the end of January 2027 and will distribute a total of 4 billion JUP to the community.

Simply by using the Jupiter exchange aggregator before November 2, 2023, personal wallets can receive airdrop allocations ranging from 1k to 100k JUP tokens, meaning that each wallet of a JUP claimant can receive from this airdrop Get $700 to $70,000 in free assets.

Special features:

The JUP airdrop provides participants with nearly six-figure rewards for simple on-chain activity and solidifies Solana’s position as a target chain for airdrop hunters as the airdrop for liquidity staking protocol Jito has concluded. Over the next six weeks, the price of SOL will double as the public begins to join the ecosystem in hopes of seizing the next JUP-scale opportunity.

Starknet (STRK)

After three years of development, Starknet finally launched its token in February, announcing an epic plan to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars to 1.3 million addresses in the broadest cryptocurrency airdrop ever.

Individual claims ranged from 111.1 to 180k STRK, and while recipients enjoyed generous rewards when the token was released, others complained that arbitrary eligibility criteria unfairly excluded many users from the airdrop.

Unfortunately, while the overall cryptocurrency market has experienced a significant recovery, the STRK token has underperformed throughout 2024, trading 75% below its post-launch highs at the time of analysis.

What's special: Starknet is one of the most anticipated airdrop projects in 2024. Although the technologically innovative L2 success has brought considerable benefits to STRK recipients, it has been difficult to obtain throughout the year due to the lack of outstanding on-chain applications. focus on. This airdrop highlights the extremely high level of saturation of L2 investment opportunities, causing enthusiasm for the entire industry to fade.

EigenLayer(EIGEN)

As Ethereum enters 2024, all eyes are on “re-staking,” a novel form of economic security that uses re-staking ETH to provide slash insurance for on- chain applications.

Many in the community were hoping that this breakout phenomenon would prove a revolutionary use case for the heavily suppressed Ethereum, and while ETH/BTC continued to trend downward throughout the year, the emerging protocol at the forefront of re-staking did manage to spark a wave of interest in the token. demand for the coin; EigenLayer alone accumulated over 5 million ETH before the airdrop was announced on April 29.

Special features:

Recipients of EIGEN have been frustrated by the fact that this airdrop was initially non-transferable, and the protocol has been criticized for failing to reward all airdrop participants, but the team has been working hard to rectify community concerns.

Liquid Recollateralized Token (LRT) protocols like ether.fi also distributed additional incentives and fueled the DeFi credit boom as on-chain participants began to leverage LRT.

EigenLayer's success in the absence of a real-time restaking product demonstrates the extremely low barriers many crypto projects face in achieving product-market fit, and forces other protocols to release their own points program deposit contracts, regardless of whether they actually have real-time applications .

Ethena (ENA)

The Ethena Points program went live on February 19, the moment the first public deposits were accepted on the app; first-season ENA token rewards began to be claimed on April 2, and the second-season campaign was launched immediately.

Thanks to the sizable airdrop incentive program and its timely introduction to the hottest financing rate environment of the year, USDe supply expanded unrestricted to $2.39 billion by mid-April, which was subsequently affected by the waning enthusiasm for ENA airdrops and the crypto market The situation has cooled down and stagnated.

Special features:

The ENA airdrop demonstrated the benefits of a well-designed points program and successfully gained widespread attention for Ethena's synthetic dollars in early 2024.

Ethena uses clear points eligibility criteria that reward relatively risky on- chain activities, such as re-staking Ethena native assets in DeFi, and has demonstrated that a short follow-up to a second airdrop season allows the protocol to gain more from airdrop activities. big gains.

Hyperliquid (HYPE)

On November 29, Hyperliquid airdropped 310 million HYPE (more than 30% of the total token supply) to more than 94,000 early users.

As the value of HYPE soared to over $33 in the following weeks, this multi- billion dollar airdrop became the largest cryptocurrency distribution ever and replicated the success of the earliest airdrops of this cycle to more of participants, awarding many users six-figure token bonuses.

Nearly 70% of Hyperliquid airdrops are reserved for users, making the HYPE airdrop look (at least on the surface) more egalitarian in its distribution scheme than competitors, which typically reserve the vast majority of tokens for distribution to teams and investors.

Special features:

Although the applications built by Hyperliquid do not have a viable decentralization roadmap and deviate significantly from traditional crypto design practices, the success of this airdrop demonstrates the crypto industry's desire for high-performance products.

HYPE's success coincides with a general boom in the crypto market in late 2024, during which investors began to ask less questions and imitate more.