What Made the Monad Airdrop Smart
Monad's airdrop might be one of the smartest we've seen.
As someone who has studied every major airdrop for the last few years, here are some points that stand out to me.
The Exclusions Are More Interesting Than the Inclusions
More interesting than those included is the list of exclusions:
- All testnet users
- Most of the farmers
Out of 700k+ members on Discord and 1.2M+ followers on X, only about 5.5K wallets qualified. Well under 1%.
So Who Was Included?
About 225K wallets from the broader crypto community, over 40x the number of eligible Monad community wallets.
Why aim at the larger crypto community first?
There is real inertia in trying a new L1. Bridging assets, familiarizing yourself with a new ecosystem, changing habits. It all has friction. A token allocation helps overcome that friction for people who can move markets and norms.
Who Are These People?
Notable accounts and active DeFi users (Monad Cards holders, DeFi whales, and so forth).
- These accounts drive mindshare
- They bring liquidity
- They tend to have longer time horizons
- They tend to be less mercenary
Airdrop as Onboarding, Not Exit Liquidity
Monad's airdrop strategy optimizes for mindshare, liquidity, and early onchain activity that should drive early onchain activity and create a flywheel that attracts more users. Airdrop as onboarding, not exit liquidity.
Smart, deliberate, and one of the best executions in a long time.