How to Be the Winner in the Airdrop Battles Against Witch Addresses

Recovery of the cryptocurrency market always brings airdrop carnivals and battles.

In 2021, before the airdrop, dYdX not only screened users according to their transactions and set up reward-receiving qualifications but also set unlocking rules for the airdrop. Only when the unlocking task is completed can the airdrop be received. The actual distribution address is more than 30,000, accounting for only one-half of the total winner addresses.

In 2022, before the airdrop, Optimism screened users based on dimensions such as time, interaction volume, and activity. A campaign to report witch addresses was launched simultaneously, with 17,000 addresses removed.

In 2023, before the Arbitrum airdrop, users are scored in multiple dimensions including time, interaction volume, frequency, etc., and anti-witch rules are set to reduce the score of the Wool Party users. As a result, only a third of the addresses and dApps on the chain are eligible.

Although the battle against witch addresses helped the project avoid the reward taken by invaluable participants, it also accidentally injured more real users. And those Wool Party participants can invent more ways to abuse airdrop rules.

After the Arbitrum airdrop, a large number of individual users complained on Twitter that they participated in the interaction but could not claim the airdrop. On the contrary, according to X-Explore’s estimation, the Arbitrum airdrop still includes about 150,000 witch addresses and at least 4,000 witch communities.

The outcome of this battle may be that both sides suffer, and real users are forced to suffer. So, for the project side, how can we check Wool Party participants and protect the rights and interests of real users?

This article will describe how to use the current Web3 market tools for airdrops in the following three dimensions:

1.Eligibility

The growth tool in Web3 is used for airdrops and giveaways of crypto projects, so the claim rules and eligibility restrictions are natural. TaskOn provides 4 eligibility restrictions for projects as follows:

It includes three different dimensions: on-chain data, loyalty, and off-chain data. It can cover the mainstream needs of the project side, that is, the user’s:

• On-chain assets — in the crypto industry with financial attributes, assets represent the importance of users to a certain extent;
• Tool usage — the higher the level, the higher the frequency of user’s participation in activities, and the higher the loyalty and willingness to contribute;
• Geographical features — The geographical distinction of users in the crypto industry are relatively obvious. For example, people prefer GameFi in South Korea.

2.Tasks
Projects should use the task function of growth tools to guide users to experience the product at an early stage, step by step, and block the risk that rules are abused.

According to the mainstream tools in the industry, this article summarizes the general types of tasks as follows:

Based on the above tasks, especially the API-Verified task, projects can repeatedly encourage users to use the product, promote interaction, and provide NFT/whitelist as future airdrop credentials after the user completes the task. At the final airdrop, all previous credentials will be aggregated, and the weighted calculation will give users the corresponding qualifications to apply for the airdrop.

Here is the example of TaskOn API-Verified Task:

This function allows projects to directly promote their own products and set tasks on the chain, such as Swap and transactions. This function will be more practical for more small projects — allowing them to conveniently and flexibly customize their tasks on the chain.

In this way, it can not only ensure the information collection in the early stage of the product but also cultivate early loyal users. At the same time, because of the “sunk cost”, the ratio of the Wool Party will drop greatly — if the investment costs too much, the Wool Party will either become loyal users or give up continuing to participate in the previous tasks.

Summary

All in all, with the help of Web3 marketing tools, the project can organize multiple tests and activities before the airdrop to encourage more real users to participate and then set up airdrop rules through cross-comparison of whitelists, NFT certificates, etc., which can effectively improve the efficiency to prevent witch addresses and reduce airdrop cost.

At the end of the day, a win-win situation between the project and real users will be achieved.