Newbie Guide to the Web3 Industry: Start with Airdrops and Earn While You Learn

There are mainly two groups in the Web3 industry: those who invest in cryptocurrencies and those who participate in Airdrop activities. Although the opportunities to gain huge profits through Airdrops have become scarce, Airdrops as a method of token distribution will continue to exist.

The cryptocurrency industry is still in its early stages, and we are among the early participants. Therefore, in the next two years, it is still possible to gain industry development bonuses by participating in Airdrop activities.

For newbies who have just entered the Web3 industry, participating in Airdrop events is a great way to learn. In the process of interacting with different projects, they can not only build their own understanding and methodology but also have the opportunity to gain rewards through Airdrops, serving as positive feedback for their learning.

How to Get Started Participating in Airdrop Activities?

In any field, newbies can start from three dimensions: Dao, Shu, and Qi.

"Dao" refers to cognition, understanding of the industry, and way of thinking, which requires long-term accumulation to form one's own thinking model.

"Technique" refers to methodology, specific operable methods that can be broken down into different modules and capabilities, guiding our daily operations.

"Tool" refers to instruments, various tools used in daily life. A craftsman must sharpen his tools in order to do his work well; efficient tools can help us achieve twice the result with half the effort.

1. Dao: Establishing a Global Cognitive Model

What is an Airdrop?

The project team distributes tokens for free to community members or specific user groups when issuing tokens.

Why does the project team want to Airdrop?

On one hand, it is to facilitate the project's cold start. With the incentive of the airdrop tokens, many users will invest time or a small amount of money to participate in completing the cold start of the product; on the other hand, it is to encourage more people to participate in the development of the product. The more token holders there are, the more people will use the product, leading to a more prosperous ecosystem, which in turn increases the value of the tokens, ultimately forming a positive cycle.

From a purely trading perspective, this is also to expand the market size. After the airdrop, the overall market size has become larger.

Why participate in Airdrop?

First, you need to have the right mindset. Don't fantasize about becoming rich by participating in Airdrop activities; instead, view it as a way to accumulate initial funds.

On one hand, it allows for maintaining a keen awareness of the market, participating more in new projects, grasping the direction of market development, and establishing one's own project analysis capabilities; on the other hand, one can obtain certain profits through "precise participation", which can be considered as learning while earning, providing positive feedback for one's learning.

Where are the Airdrop opportunities?

There are two dimensions to the core:

1. Choose a track: The Web3 industry has many sub-tracks, and it is important to select a track with high development potential. This is also why the Layer2 track often has larger Airdrops, while pure application projects tend to have smaller-scale Airdrops, as the development potential of public chains is higher than that of applications.

2. Choose the leaders: No matter which track you are on, pay attention to the leading projects, and at most add projects from the second tier. Many tracks essentially have a dual-leader pattern; for example, in Layer 2, there are two projects that are absolute leaders; in the inscription track, there are also two projects that are absolute leaders.

Understanding the above, basically establishes a foundational knowledge of Airdrops. However, this information is far from sufficient; a global understanding and thinking model requires long-term immersion in this industry to be established, and it necessitates the accumulation of experience.

II. Technique: Establishing a Systematic Methodology

For participating in Airdrop events, the two most important abilities are project analysis skills and fund management skills.

1. Project analysis ability

Learn to research and filter projects through a large amount of information.

The core is to target leading projects: industry infrastructure and track leaders.

There are many dimensions to the criteria for determining top projects: team background, financing background, operational mechanism, technological innovation, product data, user reputation, etc.

Products that can bring user value and have a decentralized goal (i.e., those that can issue tokens with high certainty) are worth participating in Airdrops.

The most important point is that you must personally experience the product. When you have experienced enough products, you will have a very intuitive feeling and judgment when facing a new product.

Airdrop participants are deep experiencers in this industry.

2. Capital Management Ability

There are many things to do here:

• Anti-Witch: A witch refers to a person controlling multiple identities, so the project team will take various anti-witch measures. For us, different wallet addresses need to be isolated to avoid related transactions. (High-level isolation also includes device isolation, IP isolation, etc.)

• Enrich on-chain data: multi-chain interaction, experience different products, stay active.

• Capital utilization efficiency: Interact during periods of low network fees. One fish, multiple meals; use limited funds to conduct as many on-chain interactions as possible, reducing losses.

• Risk Management: Especially in early-stage projects, there is a risk of exit scams or hacking, so it is essential to ensure fund isolation. For example, avoid keeping large amounts of funds in the project's smart contract for an extended period and be cautious with signature authorizations.

• Cost Control: Conduct accurate cost estimation, divided into precise participation and shallow participation, where the wallet addresses for precise participation require more network transaction fees.

From the specific process of participating in the Airdrop, it can be seen that this is a systematic project that requires not only the ability to analyze projects but also a systematic understanding of various scenarios of on-chain interactions.

3. Tools: Build Your Own Toolkit

The core is to find effective tools and information channels.

1. Recommended commonly used tools:

• DeFi analysis tools: Some data platforms that allow you to see the leading DeFi applications across different public chain ecosystems.
• Project background analysis tools: Some platforms allow you to see the investment and financing situation of various projects.
• Asset management tools: Some platforms offer one-stop management of your assets, with very comprehensive asset coverage.
• On-chain data analysis tools: Certain platforms can find many valuable data dashboards.

2. Task Platform:

I don't know which projects to participate in; these task platforms are the barometer.

Wallet Platform:

• Some well-known trading platforms' wallets have Airdrops or task platforms.

Task Platform:

• Some well-established task platforms
• Some emerging task platforms

3. Establish information channels:

Follow some active airdrop participants on social media, as they share insights, practical experiences, technical guidance, early project discoveries, systematic methodologies, daily project summaries, and more.

Finally, the simplest thing is to take the first step by purchasing some digital assets and then experiencing some decentralized applications. Only in this way can one have a firsthand experience of this industry.

If you just stand on the shore and watch without getting into the water, you will never learn how to swim.