21 Mar 2025

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Top 5 projects with potential retroactive airdrops

Top 5 projects with potential retroactive airdrops

Retroactive airdrop is a reward for early users who have spent money on a commission to interact with a platform.

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An important feature of retroactive airdrops is that nobody knows in advance if the project is going to give its native token as a reward. However, it also affects the potential profit: projects generously reward those users who have been actively spending their money on the platform.

Keep reading to see a list of five crypto startups that could come up with  retroactive airdrops after launching native tokens:

Arbitrum

It’s the Ethereum Layer 2 solution that allows users to benefit from a cheaper and faster network. The project raised $120 million in several funding rounds. The project was backed by Uniswap, Chainlink, Polychain Capital, Coinbase, Pantera, and ill-reputed Alameda Research.

The project team announced an upcoming retroactive airdrop. Notably, a similar Layer 2 project, Optimism, distributed $1,000-1,200 per account in OP coins at the time of listing.

The Arbitrum Odyssey event in the summer of 2022 introduced users to the Arbitrum ecosystem on the blockchain. Each week, participants were rewarded with various NFTs. But  the event was suspended due to a large influx of users. Arbitrum Bridge, Arbitrum Nova, Arbitrum Adventure, Guild, DAO, and Rage Trade can be mentioned among the current applications with a theoretically increased “value”.

 Arbitrum Bridge Interface

Arbitrum Bridge Interface

Metamask

It is the dominant browser-based wallet running on the Ethereum blockchain and dozens of EVM networks. The team announced plans to launch its native token in March 2022. In light of the huge number of users, which, according to some reports, exceeds 30 million, getting  an airdrop won't be easy.

To become eligible for an airdrop, users shall make a token swap within the wallet itself, not on the DEX exchanges Metamask connects to.  It’s also important to use as many blockchains as possible. On November 9, the project launched a beta version of its cross-chain bridge, which operates on the Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Avalanche networks.

In total, Metamask raised $450 million in a funding round, led by ParaFi Capital, SoftBank Investment Advisers, Marshall Wace, and several other funds.

Metamask Bridge Interface

Metamask Bridge Interface

Layer Zero

It is an omnichain interoperability protocol that allows users to interact with decentralized applications on multiple blockchains. All dApps will exchange data through the built-in oracle and relayers.

LayerZero has raised over $135M from Sequoia Capital, a16z, Coinbase, Binance, Tiger Global, Uniswap, and PayPal Ventures. In order to avoid involvement in future FTX asset settlements, Layer Zero Labs bought out FTX's equity positions and returned the money to the platform.

A hint at the future token launch is dropped in Layer Zero documentation. Among the largest projects that could come up with airdrops in the future are Stargate Finance, Rage Trade, and Hashflow. Since the ecosystem is small, it makes sense to participate in all available activities such as liquidity transactions, voting, and borrowing.

There are also projects available on Testnet that do not require real money investments. These include LayerZero Demo Bridge, Omni X, Radiant, TofuNFT, and SushiXSwap.

A hint at the ZRO token launch is dropped in Layer Zero documentation

A hint at the ZRO token launch is dropped in Layer Zero documentation

Zk Sync

The first EVM-compatible ZK Rollup on the Ethereum public testnet. The project launched the “Baby Alpha” phase to conduct a series of stress tests without users or projects so that the team can check if the network is working properly.

According to the road map, they expect to launch the mainnet in early 2023.

The main candidate for a retroactive airdrop is Orbiter Finance. It is also important to use Argent mobile wallet, Tevaera game, Pinata NFT creator platform, and Sismo privacy project. Zk Sync was recently added to Crew3. By completing the product quiz, you will receive the zkSync Crew3 and Roadmappor roles on Discord. This can also affect your chances of getting an airdrop.

Golden

A decentralized Web3 platform that combines a crypto knowledge base and elements of Wikipedia. Golden raised over $19M from a16z, Balaji S. Srinivasan (an angel investor in Goldfinch, Near, and Avax), Immad Akhund, and James Smith.

The website activity involves filling in information: users write articles, guides, and research, for which they receive points that will later be converted into project tokens. You should create only new and unique material. The project pays 2-3 tokens for a new article, and 1-2 tokens for editing.

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