What Is An NFT Airdrop And How Does It Work?

NFT airdrop is the issuance of NFTs for promotion or as an incentive for participating in campaigns. These events are meant to bring popularity and draw attention to a project or a brand. 

You can also become a part of NFT drops by understanding how they work. This article will teach you all you need to know about NFT airdrops.

What are NFT airdrops?

An NFT drop is a gift or reward in the form of an NFT, a token, or a cryptocurrency. New or existing brands send gifts to people as a reward for their participation, while the action helps in advertising their project.

NFT airdrops are a tool for promotion, and brands use them to gain more attention among NFT communities through events. Airdrops are also a way for brands to incentivize their supporters or communities by giving away free gifts in the form of NFTs.

There are three main reasons why NFT airdrops happen:

When an NFT airdrop happens, the users can see the number of participants, winners, total airdrop amount, and the start and end of the airdrop program. Brands usually pick winners based on certain activities like referring a friend, sharing the project on social media, liking and retweeting posts, or downloading an app. Winners will get the NFTs transferred to their wallets later.

Different types of Airdrops

There are four major types of airdrops:

Standard Airdrop

This type of airdrop is issued when you complete tasks such as sharing a post on social media, retweeting, subscribing to the newsletter, etc. After completing the task, you will receive tokens in your wallet, and this is called a standard airdrop. Usually, you don’t have to spend anything; you just have to complete a task, and you’ll get the airdrop as the reward.

This is comparable to coupons in the real world, where you get free passes to a new restaurant when it begins operation. It is an act of giving something extra to attract more business. Through this, both parties involved will benefit.

Exclusive Airdrop

Trusted members of NFT communities or a DAO can earn free NFTs as part of an airdrop. To receive the exclusive airdrops, you should have served the community for a long time or proved your loyalty.

For instance, when you visit a shop constantly for a long time, you may receive exclusive discounts thanks to your relationship with the shopkeeper. Similarly, NFT communities use exclusive airdrops to reward loyal members they want to continue with.

$LOOKS airdrop is a classic example of an exclusive Airdrop. The eligibility for this was to have at least traded 3 ETH or more on Opensea within a time frame. Once you have done this, you will receive free tokens in your wallet.

Community (NFT) Airdrop

An NFT airdrop can happen for many reasons. You may be eligible by just holding a particular crypto token in your wallet, entering a giveaway program, or receiving it free as part of a marketing incentive.

You never know which NFT may become quite profitable. For instance, the Bored Ape Mutant Serum Airdrop was initially sent to users for free. However, their value rose sharply over the next few months and was sold for over 3 ETH each, which amounted to thousands of dollars at the time.

Also, remember that not every NFT airdrop is valuable; some of them could even be scams. If an unknown NFT lands in your wallet, that is not a great sign, and you must be careful while dealing with it.

Hardfork Airdrop

A hard fork airdrop happens when you have a permanent split in a blockchain or a new version is released. This makes the creation of a new token a necessity.

Usually, the old version of the blockchain co-exists with the old tokens, but new tokens will have to be airdropped in equivalent amounts to the new ones.

Where to find a good NFT Airdrop?

Finding a good airdrop is equally difficult as participating in one. So remember the following places where you can look for NFT airdrops:

NFT drop calendar websites provide you with all the necessary information regarding NFT projects, dates of events, artists behind each project, and so on.

Remember that when you buy an NFT, you necessarily buy the brand’s values. So it is necessary to know the project, its creators, and their history before buying them.

How to participate in an NFT Airdrop?

Here are the steps you should follow to take part in an airdrop after you find the right NFT airdrop:

Step 1: Sign in to Metamask

Most NFTs exist on the Ethereum blockchain, so you need to use a wallet compliant with Ethereum, and Metamask is the most popular and reputed one available.

Sign up if you haven’t yet, and you can do so by visiting Metamask.io.

Step 2: Add ETH to the wallet

You have to pay a gas fee in ETH so you should convert your currency or cryptocurrency into Ethereum and add it to your Metamask wallet. The gas fee varies depending on how busy the network is.

Send ETH to your Metamask using your public address.

Step 3: Get the NFT airdrop

Since you already found the NFT project you’re interested in, and have ETH in your wallet for the gas fee, you can get your NFT.

Join the NFT project by logging in using Metamask. Connect your Metamask account. Usually, NFT drops allow artists to mint collections on a first-come, first-serve order. Some projects have limits on how many NFTs one user can buy.

Tips to avoid scams

All NFT airdrops should be deeply investigated to avoid scams and malpractices. To stay out of trouble, follow the tips mentioned below and you shall be fine:

How to check if an NFT Airdrop is worth it?

There are 3 factors you can look at in order to grasp the worth of an NFT drop:

Whitepaper

This is a complete document that contains the full details of problems that the project intends to solve, the opportunity, the team members and their credentials, tokenomics, and a clear roadmap of the project. All these features point to a well-developed project and a high value.

Website

The website of a project offers a quick overview of the goals of the project. Plus, you can see the incentives, the benefits for token holders, founders, project supporters, and so on. The more complete and satisfying these features, the better the project.

Social media 

Projects create big hype on their social media handles ahead of the NFT airdrops. So interested people can understand what to expect from the project, rules, number of contestants, crypto exchanges where tokens are listed, and so on. Before buying the NFT project, check the trading volume, price, supply of tokens, and market cap of the NFTs.

Conclusions

With the metaverse taking shape daily, and the number of digital artists increasing, there will be numerous NFT airdrops in the coming days and years. Use the above information to buy airdrops and to stay away from scams.

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