What is an airdrop
An airdrop in cryptocurrency can be described as a series of processes involved in the distribution of free new tokens/coins to participants on a specific blockchain.
You probably may have found out at one time or the other that your coin balances somehow got to increase without you buying or sending in any addition. If someone had not mistakenly sent you the coins in a transaction, then it is most likely that they had come from an airdrop. Although, usually when an airdrop is slated to come up (especially for those requiring special task from beneficiaries), the distributors of the tokens make announcements about it. At other times, the free coins are just issued out at discretion and based on fulfilled conditions on the end of the receiver of those tokens.
But why airdrops?
There are multiple reasons as well as motivations behind the organization of an airdrop. Certain type of token may have been given out as a reward, where the team behind the token, issues out free coins to appreciate users loyalty especially for those who gave support early enough by investing in the ICO projects.
Sometimes, it may also be part of the marketing strategy of an ICO. To incentivize the public into promoting and spreading words about the project, an airdrop is thus organized. Typically the public will be required to perform a certain task, ( e.g share about the project on their own social media channel, signing up a form etc) in order to be eligible for the airdrop.
Besides, airdrops may also take place as a result of a fork, where holders of the parent coins also get an equal /certain amount of the new forked version ( e.g Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash Fork ) as a way to bootstrap the new cryptocurrency.
In some instances, the purpose of an airdrop could be to acquire leads from the public. In order to be eligible for such airdrop, you will typically be required to complete an online form in order to contribute to their lead database which is the case for Universa.io
We have also come across some airdrop campaigns that require their participants to purchase a certain amount of a new coin before they are subsequently given the same amount of free coins. Another possible reason for airdrop is to balance up or ensure an equal distribution of tokens among users on the blockchain. But in whatever way it is implemented, and for whatever reason, airdrops basically are meant for issuing out free coins to a community of cryptocurrency users.
How to get informed about upcoming airdrops
Getting correct and timely information about airdrops are necessary in overall, if you are serious about getting yourself some free token. Usually, airdrops are issued out from time to time, and you’ll need a source of information that can give you an alert when the campaign is on, or when it is about to start. One of the reliable means of getting airdrop news, is by joining active cryptocurrency forums that relay information on every airdrop that comes up. You may also adopt the social media routes by keeping a close eye on the official pages for these projects. Alternatively, there are a few websites out there that provide such information that you may find useful.
Here's a few websites that you can use to get relevant airdrop alerts and notifications.
Airdrop Tracker http://www.airdroptracker.co
Airdrop Notify http://www.airdropnotify.com
Coin Airdrops https://coinairdrops.com
Airdrop Addict http://airdropaddict.com
Airdrops Live https://airdrops.live
How to claim your airdropped tokens in your wallets
Note that every airdrop comes with their own unique rules for participation and ultimately for receiving the free tokens. Claiming your airdrop token is dependent on the individual nature or type of the airdrop program. Hard forked airdrops and their features would definitely be different from a basic normal marketing airdrop. Just as the circumstances are different, so would the procedure for claiming the free tokens. While forked airdrop coins may require that you sign your public keys with the private keys, an ICO airdrop may just require that you have the compatible wallets only.
Most airdrops at present are organized by projects with ERC-20 tokens, hence you will need an ERC-20 compatible wallet. Exchange wallet will not work in this case. Examples of ERC-20 wallets are the MyEtherWallet, MetaMask, Mist, and a few others.
One of the most important things that you should take note of when it comes to airdrops, are the instructions as stated by the project team. Some airdrops require you to join a telegram group for the project, while others may request you to create a social media post. Not complying with these instructions may make you lose out of the freebies.
Since it is expected that the tokens might most probably appreciate in value over time, the idea would be to keep tokens that are still low in price until they gain more acceptance, and increase in value. It is not impossible though, that some ICO tokens would still eventually not amount to much value even after a long while. But then, it wouldn’t do any harm participating in as much as you can, since we just could never tell exactly which token would appreciate the most later in time. At the end of the day, it is free money, so why not ?
Conclusion
In the world of crypto, security should always be your utmost priority. We have witnessed instances of fraudulent airdrop campaign and unfortunately a lot of folks fell for them. Remember to never reveal your private key to any party. To ensure that a particular airdrop campaign is legitimate, always check on the offical websites and media channels or simply just ask the admins in the telegram channel ( Beware! Some scammers might pose as admin and private message you. Do not fall for that ). That's all from us. If you have any questions or any experience to share, leave us a message in the comment section below. We would love to hear from you. 😉
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