How to achieve low investment and high returns when participating in airdrop projects in 2025? A beginner's guide

The crypto market is entering a new growth cycle in 2025. A series of positive factors such as the Federal Reserve’s continued liquidity injections, increased national-level crypto asset allocations, and approval of mainstream asset ETFs are driving digital assets to become a new choice for global investors. In this wave of market行情, besides direct investments in Bitcoin and Ethereum, participating in airdrop projects has become a cost-effective option for many—getting project tokens with zero or very low investment, with potentially substantial returns.

The Essence of Airdrop Projects: The Growth Weapon for Projects

The core logic of an airdrop (Airdrop) is simple: project teams distribute tokens for free to eligible user accounts or allow users to claim them voluntarily. This practice may seem like “getting something for nothing,” but in fact, project teams have clear objectives—attract users with free tokens, cultivate ecosystem activity, and create long-term community effects.

Early airdrops were mostly simple social media rewards (e.g., retweeting on Twitter), but now project teams set higher screening thresholds. Current mainstream airdrop methods are divided into two categories: one involves quick participation through simple tasks (retweets, likes, follows); the other requires deeper engagement (long-term staking, governance voting, providing liquidity, etc.) to identify true ecosystem contributors.

The Most Profitable Airdrop Cases in History

Can airdrops make money? The data below makes it clear.

Uniswap Airdrop—one of the largest in history. In September 2020, decentralized exchange Uniswap distributed UNI tokens for free to its historical users, with an initial price of $3-4. Each eligible address received 400 UNI, worth about $1200 at the time. At peak, the total value of these tokens exceeded $10,000, making it an epic return.

APE Airdrop—a moment of wealth for the NFT community. In March 2022, Yuga Labs launched the APE token for the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem, with an initial price of $6-7. On average, each account received 1500 APE tokens, which could be sold for $9000-10500 if sold on the day, once again demonstrating the lucrative potential of airdrops.

Arbitrum Airdrop—a showcase in the Layer 2 space. As a leading public chain, Arbitrum airdropped 1.162 billion ARB tokens to about 625,000 wallet addresses, with about 2000 tokens per account, initial price of $1.3-1.4, and a direct sale value of about $3000. More importantly, after the airdrop, Arbitrum’s ecosystem users and activity levels not only did not cool down but continued to reach new highs.

Current situation: not all airdrops reach the scale of Uniswap, but participating in airdrop projects to earn tens or hundreds of dollars is now common.

How to Systematically Participate in Airdrop Projects: Core Methodology

Step 1: Assess the project’s potential

To grab airdrops, first evaluate the project team’s “vision.” The scale of fundraising determines the likelihood of an airdrop: projects with over $100 million in funding generally have token issuance plans, making airdrops highly probable; startups with less than $10 million in funding without backing from big players often have limited airdrop rewards.

Use public channels like Crunchbase, official Twitter accounts, etc., to understand the funding background. Follow professional airdrop bloggers—they often publish strategies in advance to help newcomers get started quickly.

Step 2: Choose appropriate interaction methods

After confirming the project, select interaction strategies based on its characteristics:

• Task-based: reading official articles, retweeting, liking, commenting—lowest threshold
• Interaction-based: performing swaps, sending/receiving tokens, cross-chain operations—requires actual operations
• Staking-based: single or double token staking, providing liquidity, long-term locking—requires real funds
• Comprehensive: combining multiple methods for higher scores

A special reminder: Testnet projects only require virtual tokens for interaction, with low thresholds; mainnet projects require real funds, so risk assessment is necessary.

Step 3: Avoid “Witch Attack” tagging

Now, project teams value interaction frequency and time span rather than one-time actions. If using multiple accounts, ensure proper account isolation; otherwise, you risk being marked as a “Witch Attack” (controlling the network with multiple accounts), which will disqualify you from the airdrop.

New Trends and Opportunities in 2025 Airdrops

The competition for airdrops in 2025 will be fiercer, but opportunities will also increase. Here are some promising directions:

Modular Blockchain and Infrastructure: Projects like Celestia, Fuel Network, and other Layer 1 and execution layer projects, through testnet deployments and staking mainstream tokens to earn points.

Cross-chain Interoperability Protocols: Projects like LayerZero, Axelar, requiring multi-chain asset interactions and governance participation.

DeFi 3.0 Innovations: Intent-based DEX aggregators, oracle-less derivatives platforms, RWA on-chain solutions, with high-frequency trading testing and liquidity provision as key activities.

Decentralized Social and AI: Ecosystem applications like Farcaster, data training incentive platforms, earning airdrops through content creation and community contribution.

High-performance Public Chains: Emerging L2/L1 projects like Monad, Berachain, Taiko, requiring early participation in testnets and generating “contribution proofs” through on-chain activities.

2025 Airdrop New Features

Identity binding becomes standard: Projects may require KYC or on-chain reputation system verification, so establishing a “real user” profile in advance is necessary.

Dynamic allocation replaces “one-size-fits-all”: Airdrop weights will be dynamically adjusted based on user engagement depth (transaction frequency, governance participation), rewarding more involved users.

Hardware wallet participation opportunities: Some projects will airdrop to Ledger, Trezor, or DAppNode node operators, requiring early deployment.

Core Summary

Participating in airdrop projects has evolved from a “grab and go” speculative activity to a deep involvement in ecosystem building. In the past, simple social media sharing could yield huge returns, but that route is gradually closing. In 2025 and beyond, project teams will place more emphasis on “genuine user value”—those who contribute long-term will earn more.

For beginners, starting with small projects to accumulate experience and gradually participating in top-tier projects is the safest approach. But regardless of which airdrop you join, risk awareness and account security must come first.