As of August 2018, there are more than 1500 cryptocurrencies in existence. Cryptocurrencies work on the blockchain technology and Bitcoin is the world’s oldest digital currency. There has been a tremendous rise in launch of digital currencies. To ensure adoption by the cryptocurrency community developers hold an airdrop to distribute them. For a cryptocurrency to be successful, it must be widely adopted and people should be aware about it. A few of the most effective ways of increasing awareness and adoption for cryptocurrencies are through bounties and airdrops. These are marketing strategies which help a project in achieving the resources and customers it needs for a successful launch and rapid expansion.
Establishing awareness and adoption for a cryptocurrency
The success of a cryptocurrency depends on the number of people using it and the amount of coverage it receives. Support from community is essential in the widespread adoption of a cryptocurrency. Being the first cryptocurrency in existence, Bitcoin had many early adopters who wanted it to be successful. New cryptocurrencies do not have this advantage. People must be aware of the existence of a cryptocurrency before they can start using it. This can be accomplished in various ways such as initial coin offerings, bounties and airdrops.
Initial Coin Offerings
To increase the awareness of a cryptocurrency, the team behind it must know how to promote it. This is usually done by holding an ICO private sale which offers a sale of tokens to early investors. This sale is not open to the general public. The funds gathered from the private sale are then used for further promotion of the cryptocurrency. But this requires selling a huge number of tokens in a private sale. Many cryptocurrencies which are purely developer run do not have these many initial assets. These are promoted with the help of bounties. The private sale is followed by a public sale where retail investors can purchase digital tokens.
ICO Bounties
Cryptocurrency bounties are usually simple tasks created by the developer of a coin for its promotion. The reward for the completion if these tasks will be in the form of the coin created by the developer. These tasks may include promotional activities such as social media promotion. Bounties are also used for penetration testing. Rewards are given to ethical hackers and developers to find bugs and vulnerabilities in the product code. Bounties are a great way for the promotion of a new crypto asset. They are also for people who do not wish invest anything other than their time and still receive the coins. Bounties can be implemented before or after a projects ICO, depending on the strategy of the company.
Pre ICO Bounties
These bounties are offered in the initial stages of a project. Such bounties are used as a way to incentivize users to promote the project ICO through various digital marketing outlets. These include forums, blog posts and social media. Social media bounties are paid to those people who use their social media accounts to spread awareness about the project. The amount of currency paid will depend upon the results of the promotions. These results may include the number of retweets on Twitter, post shares on Facebook or video views on YouTube. Article writing bounties are offered to people with blogs or those who write on blogging platforms such as Medium. The number of coins offered in article writing bounties depends upon the number of people who read the post. It may also be based on the amount of traffic that the post brings to the project. Bitcoin talk signatures involve including a signature of the project ICO in a Bitcoin talk profile. Therefore, whenever such profiles reply in a forum or start a new post, the project will be promoted. The amount of tokens earned depend upon the seniority of the profile and the amount of posts made.
Post ICO Bounties
These bounties are being continuously provided to help expand the project after its initial raise. These are generally translation and bug reporting bounties. Translation bounties involve translation of important documents such as a product’s whitepaper into various languages. They may also involve moderating a foreign language forum or telegram group. Translation bounties help a project in reaching a global audience. Bug hunting is the oldest form of bounties in the crypto market. Rewards are awarded for finding vulnerabilities and errors in the project code. If the project involves smart contracts, then rewards are given for auditing those contracts. Bug hunting bounties can be the most profitable and usually have defined rules on how they can be claimed.
Airdrops
A cryptocurrency airdrop is way of gaining attention and support from the community. A project releases their coins usually for free, to a large number of wallet addresses. This will increase promotion of the new coin resulting in a much wider user base. This happens when account holders see a new coin in their wallet and become curious enough to do more research into it. This will also help the project gain more followers. Airdrops may also be tied to a bounty. Qualification in such airdrops involve finishing a number of tasks related to the project. The most common type of an airdrop is when a blockchain is forked. This gives all holders of that particular coin an equal amount of the new cryptocurrency. When Bitcoin forked in August 2017, a new currency was created called Bitcoin Cash. All Bitcoin holders at that time received equal amount of Bitcoin Cash. Cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms also give airdrops only to their customers. This serves to ensure the loyalty of their own customers.
Distribution of Airdrops
The most common way of distributing airdrops is through the use of the ERC20 protocol in an ERC20 wallet. In an airdrop, the tokens are simply sent to the addresses participating in the airdrop. Those addresses are selected depending upon the conditions of the airdrop. The tokens are usually sent in a ratio according to the amount of Ethereum already existing in a wallet. A few airdrops have occurred that sent a certain amount of coins to all Ethereum addresses with a non-zero balance. This ensures that an equal amount of coins are spread across the crypto community.
Currently Active and Upcoming Airdrops
There are many airdrops which are currently active. CryptoSouk aims to be the next generation digital asset exchange for traders of every skill level, making digital currency trading accessible to everyone. CryptoSouk is offering an airdrop for 20 SOUK which will be distributed after the token sale in October 2018. An airdrop form will have to be completed to receive the reward. Berminal is an impartial and decentralized cryptocurrency and blockchain information app, currently in development. Berminal is airdropping 200 BERM tokens for creating an account via their mobile application. Aerum is a high performance scalable Ethereum compatible platform designed for B2B and B2C applications. Aerum is distributing one million XRM tokens to airdrop participants in the form of stakes. Each stake contains between 20 to 200 XRM. Stakes can be earned by joining Aerum on telegram and via referrals.
BandZ is an upcoming global extranet project. It aims to deliver enterprise grade software products accessible to everyone in a decentralized and secure manner. It will soon be offering an airdrop of 120 BNZ tokens for completing the airdrop form. Its token distribution will be done after the token sale in early September 2018. Qravity is a digital entertainment production and distribution platform where decentralized creative teams get royalties for making movies, games, music, and more. Qravity is airdropping free tokens for completing its airdrop form. This airdrop is scheduled to begin from 26th August, 2018. Qravity has already completed three previous airdrops. Information about existing and future airdrops can be found at forums such as bitcoin talk or on websites such as AirDropAlert.
Important Security practices involving Airdrops and Bounties
Scammers in the crypto market are trying to get away with hard earned investor money. The most important security practice is to never reveal your private keys to anyone online. Scammers may post fake bounties or airdrop advertisements. They have posted fake airdrops and bounties on several social media platforms. A very common trick is to impersonate a famous personality and then announce an airdrop in his name. It is a good practice to check with the actual project if they are offering an airdrop or not. Airdrops are always free and will never require anyone to send coins to participate in them. Some airdrops may require you to download and use proprietary wallets. These downloads may contain viruses that would steal all data contained on a system. They may also contain miners which use your hardware resources to mine for someone else. Always check all such wallets for viruses before using them. A few airdrops require you to enter your ERC20 address in order to participate in them. Exchange addresses should never be used as these will immediately disqualify you for the airdrop. Only Ethereum wallet addresses can be used to claim airdrops.
Conclusion
Airdrops and bounties are widely used tools for increasing promotion and adoption of projects involving crypto assets. They also help users earn a few tokens for free or for some small amount of work. Bounties require some time and effort but they are the most rewarding. Airdrops are an excellent way to earn truly free coins. Airdrops and bounties, both contain the possibility of scams, hence proper security measures must be taken to avoid them.
Image provided by Airdrop Alert.
