Airdrop Basics 101

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Most valuable users are rewarded. We need to become 'valuable' to whatever we are farming but we don't know the exact definitions of each project, however based on the data of past airdrops we can get a good rough estimate of what we need to do.

Most importantly, we don't want to be labeled as a 'sybil' - when one person or entity creates many fake identities to gain undue influencer or rewards. The easy way to replicate the activity would be through running automated services aka bots yet that would be an unfair way to other participants. That is why there are different criteria that applied to filter those out.

Once you are labeled as a 'sybil', you might be disqualified from most, if not any, future airdrops.

1. Wallet History

Accounts with a rich onchain history are more likely not to be excluded from airdrops and sometimes are even just rewarded because of their past airdrops and because of their history.

It's preferable to use those accounts as long as they are safe (aka you haven't been hacked, drained, etc on those) rather than creating a completely fresh account.

2. Account Age (Months/Weeks/Days)

The cheapest metric to hit and all it requires bridging as early as you can to get it going.

Ideally, you'd wanna have 9-12 distinct months on all accounts. Distinct weeks and days are up to you, ofc the more the better. Try to aim for multiple.

You want your activity to be spread out and not all done within 48hours after bridging or just in any other slot, while it's blank in other days.

3. Bridge Volume

I personally use main bridges (in), just in case but also 3rd party ones. The criteria has been mostly around the volume bridged rather than amount of times.

I'd advise to have a total bridged at least over $1k. It doesn't mean you have to keep it all there, more on that later.

4. Transactions Count

Transactions reflect our activity. The onchain history all put together creates some sorta passport. The more information there's on someone, the easier it is to put a picture.

Usually, there's a very low bound threshold of 4-5 transactions.

More activity based on interactions => more data => more legitimacy => a better chance of guarantied rewards & a chance of higher rewards

We can usually expect tiers of sub 10, 10-25 or 50, 25/50+ and up to 100, afterwards it's 100+.

Make sure to conduct them on distinct months and weeks and it helps us with our account age (#2). You can do multiple on some days as a real user would do but the bulk of them should be spread out.

5. Contracts Count

Contracts count is similar to transaction count yet it is a more challenging variation. It is harder to achieve having lots of unique contracts. It also works as a way to sort out through users that have lots of transactions but lack diversity (more on that in #6).

While they might not be a specified criteria of contracts, we do want to have a variety of contracts. The number is going to be lower than transactions count by the default.

Still, mentally prepare yourself for tiers of sub 5, 10-25, 25-50 and 50+.

6. Diversity

While we can get hundreds of transactions through one contract, it does not create much diversity. The user with onchain rich history is going to be more legitimate and is going to be rewarded way more. That is why it's important to do different yet legitimate activities. And while we are increasing our interactions we might as well do it in the most efficient way possible - by farming the ecosystem protocols that might reward us in the future either through their own airdrops or part of the airdrops that they receive from the chain themselves.

More uniqueness => better diversity

This is where we have to be also mindful of different sectors such as DeFi, NFTs, Gaming, Infra, Bridges, etcetera.

Check out the bonus point at the end that targets the chain diversity aspect perfectly.

7. Volume

Volume is one of those criteria that makes the project looks better. People feel more secure when there is more money tied up and it gives them a feeling of legitimacy. That is why we can understand while protocols reward that, on top of, of course, our usual fight for looking like a legitimate user in protocol's eyes.

Remember, volume is not a static of money amount that you have. You can easily create volume equal to magnitudes of your capital.

8. Identity

The identity part in the decentralized world hasn't really been solved and accessible in an easy way, however there are already some promising options or just options that projects have utilized to distinguish the real users from bots.

Ethereum Name Service aka ENS would be one of those. Owning and ENS name and then having it set as a primary to a wallet can be a decent indicator.

Gitcoin passport is also another solution that tries to identify real users in the space. Owning a passport with above 20 score would be preferably.

Gitcoin donors, mostly on L1, rarely on L2s, can be a good way to

Unique NFT collections by the project themselves such as Libertas Omnibus on zksync or other ones that are also earned and non-transferrable can be used.

Protocol aligned users such as stakers have a good record of receiving airdrops too.

Multisig signers (Gnosis SAFE or just SAFE now) and voters of main big DAOs have been passing the criteria too as it is more likely the holders participate in the governance processes.

There is way more other potential options but those are the most important.

9. Washy Activities

Low cost and low risk repeatable interactions can be and will be voided. Some of those are approvals when it asks for funds to be accessed.

10. Balance

Your balance at the time of the snapshot matters. We know some airdrops have been choosing a particular minimum and filter wallets out.

$50 seems like the minimum to keep on chains, I'd recommend to go for $100+ at all times.

Bonus: Extra Chains

Arbitrum had Arbitrum Nova. Zksync has zksync lite. Polygon has polygon zkEVM right now but it might be reversed in their case.

Those projects focused on a variety of Ethereum scaling solutions and they even went ahead with their mainnet versions but pivoted. Yet we saw that using arbitrum nova gave some exta points for arbitrum airdrop. Thus, it might be valuable to do the same with zksync lite.

You do the same but on 1/10th or 1/100th scale. Quantity and quality of interactions.

Extra bonus: Strategies

There are different strategies: going for quality, quantity, both or other nuanced options. You are the one who has to pick the best strategy for yourself.

Final thoughts:
I hope this gives you a meta framework to navigate the farming aspect and adjust it to your own needs. While farming would be a little bit different when it comes to categories such as NFTs, DeFi, Bridges & more or doing it on a range of multiple accounts, it all still is pretty straightforward at its core.