Airdrops are everywhere in crypto. Everywhere you look, you can see new coins, projects, and protocols looking to bring in new users by airdropping tokens directly to them.
But are these airdrops actually bringing in new long-terms holders and users?
To find out, we’re going to take a closer look at airdrops in the Terra ecosystem with the help of Flipside Crypto’s on-chain data and our burgeoning community of crypto analysts.
Genesis outpaces weekly airdrops on Anchor
We’ll start by examining the airdrops provided by Anchor to LUNA stakers with help from @shreyashpatodia, Descipher, and Kida.
As we can see in their analysis, the Anchor Genesis airdrop was extremely successful. Users claimed roughly 48.5 million of the 50 million ANC distributed to stakers. What’s more, ANC’s Genisis airdrop was more than capable of bringing new users into Terra, with more than 42,000 wallets joining in roughly 24 hours.
Subsequent events, however, haven’t seen the same success.
As we can see in the graph below, users seem to have grown less enthusiastic about claiming weekly distributions as time has gone on. In fact, roughly 50 percent of weekly airdrops went unclaimed as of the fourth weekly airdrop, a percentage that has risen as airdrops have continued. Those that do claim their rewards are causing increased sell pressure for ANC in the ANC-UST pool on airdrop days.
All told, the number of total tokens claimed for the Genesis airdrop is far greater than that of the weeklies. The number of tokens and the price of ANC alike have declined sharply, leading our analysts to conclude that monthly or even quarterly airdrops might be better for the Anchor community.
Mirror airdrop adoption drops over time
Next up is a look at Mirror airdrops from @scottincrypto and RyanL. Much like airdrops on Anchor, there have essentially been two types of MIR token airdrops: the Genesis Airdrop and weekly airdrops that have followed.
And, also like Anchor, MIR airdrops have followed a consistent pattern. During the Genesis airdrop event, users claimed nearly 9 million of the 9.15 million total rewards available. As we can see in the charts below, however, the amount of MIR claimed from weekly airdrops quickly began to fall off from more than 300,000 MIR to barely more than 100,000 MIR.
Simply put, MIR airdrop recipients aren’t claiming their free money. Just one-third of airdrops have been claimed as of this writing.
However, one major difference between MIR and ANC recipients can be seen in what happens after rewards have been claimed. While ANC tended to lead to increased sell pressure, those that claim MIR airdrops tend to re-invest their MIR back into the ecosystem via staking and liquidity providing.
Pylon Genesis airdrop sees surge in claimed tokens
Our final airdrop analysis comes from @TZMCrypto and @sem1d5. They analyzed distributions on the Pylon Protocol, the third and final project to enable airdrops for LUNA stakers.
The Pylon Protocol Genesis airdrop was quite well-hyped. This lead not only to a percentage amount of claimed rewards, as was seen with ANC and MIR, but also an increase in the actual amount airdropped. Users claimed more than than 211 million tokens in less than 24 hours on July 2.
Do they work?
So, are all these airdrops having a positive impact on the ecosystems they’re designed to support?
As of this writing, it seems only the Anchor Genesis airdrop was successful in bringing new users. More than 42,000 joined in 24 hours following the event. Mirror and Pylon launch events didn’t seem the same success. Weekly airdrop rewards, meanwhile, seem only to be bringing long-term users into the Mirror ecosystem.
Do more with Terra data 🔍
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this analysis. Want to get more involved with the Flipside community and see your own analysis on our blog? Join us on Discord to get started. You can also see some of best Terra bounty submissions here.