The wider world · 72 / 86 · 3 min
Airdrops and points
An airdrop pays tokens to people who used a product. Points are a score that might become a token. You are being paid to show up, often in a coin the issuer can create.
Points are a score that might become a token. You are being paid to show up, often in a coin the issuer can create.
A worked case
A person bridges, swaps, and locks coins for months to farm points. The token arrives, heavily unlocked for the team, and the points paid less than the fees and the risk. The score was real. The payday was theirs to design.
What you are paid with
Sometimes a token with a market. Sometimes a point with no market yet. The work is your time, your gas, and your attention. The pay can be worth less than the gas the day it arrives.
The farm
When the only reason to use the app is the drop, the app is a distribution. Insiders still have their own allocation. Your points do not change that.
Do not deposit size you care about in order to farm a rumour.
The points were a score. The supply was theirs.
Uniswap's September 2020 airdrop gave tokens to people who had used the protocol, and it became the template. Later projects replaced the surprise with a season of points: bridge, swap, lock, and wait, and a score might become a coin. People spent real fees and took real risks, bridge risk included, to farm a maybe. When the token arrived, the team allocation and the investor unlock were often larger than the points had suggested, because the points were a marketing site and the supply was a document.
You are being paid to show up, often in a coin the issuer can create. That can still be worth more than the fees. It can also be worth less, which is the usual mathematical outcome of a crowd all doing the same tasks for the same score. The issuer designs both the score and the supply. You do not.
Count the fees and the bridge risk as the price of the option. If you cannot, you are not farming. You are hoping, and you are paying for it on the way.
Read it yourself
These links are the record. They are not a recommendation, and they are not instructions. A news story or a court paper can still be wrong about a detail. The check does not change because a famous name is in the story.
Apply the check
Open a question. The line is about this topic. It is not a verdict that anything is safe.
You, a little, if you can sell. The team, from the allocation they kept.
The issuer, who designs the drop and the supply.
A rule change before the drop. A market that will not buy the token.
Check yourself
Are points money?
Not until there is a real token and a market, and even then the pay can be small.
After this you can compare the gas and the risk with the pay, before you call a points program income.