Airdrop
A free distribution of tokens to wallets, often to reward early users or bootstrap a new community.
An airdrop sends tokens directly to wallets at no cost. Projects use them to reward early users or draw attention to a launch. Uniswap's 2020 drop gave 400 UNI, worth thousands at the time, to anyone who had used the exchange.
That kicked off "airdrop farming," where users interact with new protocols hoping to qualify for a future token. Whole strategies now revolve around guessing which apps will reward users.
Stay alert. Scam airdrops drop worthless tokens to lure people to a malicious site. Never connect to claim a token you didn't expect.
Related terms
A digital asset issued on top of an existing blockchain, usually through a smart contract rather than its own network.
PhishingA scam that tricks you into revealing keys or signing a malicious transaction by posing as something you trust.
Dusting AttackSending tiny amounts of crypto to many addresses to track and unmask who controls them.
WalletA tool that stores the keys controlling your crypto and lets you send, receive, and sign transactions.