Airdrops: Giving Money Away Is Harder Than It Seems

Researchers Johnnatan Messias, Aviv Yaish and Benjamin Livshits present what they describe as the first comprehensive empirical study of nine major airdrops across Ethereum and Layer-2 ecosystems, concluding that airdrops often fail to produce lasting engagement. They report that up to 66% of tokens in some cases were rapidly sold, often in recipients' first post-claim transaction, and attribute this largely to "airdrop farmers" who optimize eligibility criteria to extract value. A case study of the Arbitrum airdrop shows short-term activity spikes that did not translate into sustained user involvement. The paper also discusses design pitfalls such as Sybil vulnerability, poor incentive alignment and governance token misuse, and proposes guidelines for more effective airdrop strategies.