Topic: What should you know about airdrops and how to avoid scam (Read 377 times)

Traders will always find solutions to solved their problems arising. Airdrops are free project but it doesn't mean we should simply not make available backup alternatives because this is crypto, anything unplanned can happen. Bounty campaign always find a way to push their campaign to be well stable. Recognized the accessible projects and always try your best to make profits easy and running. We should always stick closer to the market because any slight mistakes will definitely make one become vulnerable to losses.

To know airdrop in this days is not hard as before again and the problem now in airdrop is which of them is genuine to mine in the beginning and to invest when finally launched in the exchanges. Many people were not aware of the airdrop in the ecosystem though there was knowledge about it but it was minimal until the recent outbreak of Notcoin making people to know more about airdrop and people Cash out from airdrops.
Some people even name it as an investment to make profit quick.

There are many different tips about recognizing the scum. Personally, I was lucky to have really experienced traders who can suggest a good coin or bounty campaign.

Some projects actually provide an application or a web platform. So to use services you need to use them. Some of this android/IOS can have hidden miners. Sometimes sites of scammy projects can have miners as well. You open the site and can here your PC became oo noisy or see CPU usage increased. In this case airdrop is used to attract future victims. You should never underestimate the creativity of scammers nowadays.

Maybe you are right. And maybe there are just too many airdrops nowadays. This makes the average quality to decrease.

With every day aridrops worse, awards less, exchange don't listed their tokens and another good stories.

Didn't know that some airdrops requiring their participants to install an application or extension to mine cryptocurrency, thanks for the heads up but It is fishy to tell that they want to install some random applications that may contain some viruses and backdoors to steal the user's data and wallets, It should not be required in the first place and risky at the same time if the tokens are based on an ERC20 wallets why the hell they want to install something? 90% it is a virus or a hidden miner.

That is so true! Scamers do a good job nowdays. That is why it is important to follow simple rules to protect your data.

Yes, most people in crypto will not join an airdrop. But there is also a large number people who want to do it daily. That is why there are so many telegram channels and twitter account promoting airdrops. I believe they get a lot from it as they can easyly get more than 1-2k referals.

Some facts like when the airdrop is not linked from official channels, it's posted from brand new accounts, grammatical and spelling errors, there’s no way to withdraw without a purchase,they promise decent amounts of money raise suspicions and I will never take part in such kinds of airdrops. But sometimes scam airdrops is really good done so it is almost impossible to recognise the scam

I would recommend to skip all airdrops except those that are performed by ICOs instead of a main token sale. Sometimes if a project reaches its hardcap during a private of a presale they can hold an airdrop to satisfy the rest of their community who couldn't participate in the presale. In this case such airdrops can be very profitable. The best that I know about was held my Ontology project - 1000 ONT. Which equaled to about 11 ETH at its highest point. So these airdrops are definitely worth joining.

Very nice help bro. I read the benefiters angle but the referrals are usually difficult. Sometimes you hardly get a referral who will be interested to sign up, this would have been a very good means to acquire large amount of airdrops.

Airdrops are not as easy as they were supposed to be. Now many airdrops require you to complete a lot of tweets, retweeting, adding telegrams, filling out forms, BTT comments, etc. The tasks are so tedious that some airdrops cost 10 - 20 minutes to complete, and most of the airdrops won't actually pay you tokens.

Unfortunately, you are wrong. 80% airdrops will ask for your email. if you do a lot of them, it will result in spam and fishing emails on your maillbox. Some airdrops require that you create an account (email + password). There are people cleaver enough to use the same email and password they use in exchanges. There are many other examples hpw ypu can be scammed. So the general rule is always care about your security as much as possible.

And you should not concerned about airdrop scam because usually on airdrop,
you are only require to do some small task. nothing to lose.
but for investors, your article should be read by them.

Thanks. Not so long, but as long as I am in crypto - since December 2017. In crypto you have to learn fast and always check all availlable information.

Good info - something like a guide for those who starts participating in Airdrops and for those whom it is good to remind about the risks. Among the airdrops there are lots of interesting ones, but it rare happens. And it gives not very high profit, but it exists. But among the ICOs there are lots of interesting projects and at first sight they are trustworthy and it turns out that the founders are frauds... So in the world of crypto you have to think twice and does not depend on wheather it is ICO or Airdrop.... Your attention should be paid to the team and the White Paper of the project and too many things. And even the successful process of token sale does not guarantee that your investments won`t be stolen after the ICO end, or after the end of Airdrop campaign.

I saw an airdrops that cost 1500$ (and I'm serious), so not all airdrops are scam. Unfortunately the rate vali/scam is something about 1/100 nowdays.

Airdrop is not free money. You are payed for fulfilling tasks. ICOs need to have good social accounts with lots of followers. So they go the easiest way to get followers - pay them. As always good projects don't need it, but scam or near scam ICOs can't do without it.

Great guides bro . Thanks for sharing these information . This will be helpful for newbies . How long have you been doing Airdrop/Bounty ?

It is an interesting question what is the difference between airdrop and bounty. Normally we cal it airdrop if it requires a single time action like join some social networks, post something, ask a question on telegram and etc. In most cases reward is fixed.(i.e. you will get X token for joining telegram). In bounty campaign you do tasks on weekly basis and report to bounty maanager. Most bounties use stakes system instead of fixed reward. But as always you can find airdrops with stakes or airdrops with lots of tasks. And there are bounties with fixed rewards as well. So it is all close...

how does one can be scammed by airdrops? It is not that easy. You should never use your main email addresses and passwords also use fake personal information if you can because most can steal your information.

If they don't require too much hassle and KYC, I might end up going through an airdrop but usually, it's not worth it.

Great points, but when you've been participating in airdrops for some time now, you can start to tell apart the good ones and the scam ones from experience.

Beginners do have to start somewhere though.

As what my friends said, that airdrops can be detected either it is a scam or not,  by easily looking forward the campaigns which the airdrops being offered, and also to the campaign manager which is the very trusted one.

This thread should be pinned. Good read for beginners in crypto world. But where you said airdrop is given to people who in return do some task, is wrong or rather used to be wrong, I got cyder in airdrop and all they asked to do was fill in a form. No twitter retweeting / facebook likes etc. Nowadays things are changing and people mixing airdrop meaning with bounty.

It takes due diligence to get on real projects nowadays as there are tons of fake projects out there. Some unknown persons just go ahead to create a Google form to steal people's info without having any project in mind, and many jump in for the sake of getting free tokens. With that said, I think it's becoming more demanding filling some airdrops as there are lot of tasks to be done. Such airdrops are tending towards the direction of bounties and with less reward.

Well, Nucleus Vision airdropped smth around $5 only. And it is still good as they had no plan to do it originally. Also airdrops are harmful for good projects. When a token hits exchange airdropped tokens are usually dump. It can cause a chain reaction and the price will be dumped.

You should be more cautious and follow security advices I posted. Never use your email and password that you are using on exchanges or social networks. Scam projects don't really protect collected data or can use it fro crime themselves.

As long as there is no need to download nor send any amount i think you can have the airdrop.
not all airdrop are scams, not all are legit.
but how can we know? we should just to the little things in just a couple of minutes and wait for it.

This is correct in most cases but there are exceptions of course. A ton of good projects have airdropped their tokens in the last past months, from Nucleus Vision, Polymath, Ontology etc. But yea, when you hear that the project is doing an airdrop it means (anomalies exists, as mentioned before) that there is a serious lack of interest in their project/tokens.

True. The problem is that scam projects offer big airdrops, but their tokens don't reach exchange. Even if they do, they go several times below ICO price and cost nothing. Good projects don't do airdrops (they don't need them) or give just few tokens, but you can actually sell them on a normal exchange.

Join airdrop with viable ICO project,check through past record what project they want to set up or deliver to the real world or the crypto space. Avoid airdrop that request  you send your private key.

It depends what you mean under "profit". If you want 1000$, then no. There was an airdrop for REBL token, some sold it for $1,5k. If you want to earn like $50 per month from airdrops, then it is possible to profit.

This is too long. To make it shorter and simpler, airdrops won't really give you profit. They are too little to suffice transaction fees to begin with. This is just an ICOs way for promotion. They will be feeling most of the benefits because more and more people will participate thinking they'll be able to earn big. Well that's a big NO-NO because airdrops are just decorations to attract people. It serves nothing more than that.

Quick follo up. There airdrops that require to install a chrome app (or other app). These apps ususally contain hidden miners or spying applications. Always think twice before installing such apps.

Cryptocurrency Airdrops are popular within our community, but what we know about them? Why is it sometimes dangerous to participate in them? What is an airdrop? How to profit from airdrops? You will find answers for all your questions in this thread. If you don’t, you can ask your question in comments.

Who issues airdrops?

Airdrops can be issued by the following parties:

• ICO project. 90% of all airdrops are issued by new ICOs. The team uses airdrops to promote the project.
• Existing cryptocurrency. Sometimes an altcoin that is on the market for years can issue an airdrop. It is done to build a stronger community, or serves a certain aim. For example, the team may need people to vote for exchange listing and reward users with their coins/tokens.
• Hard fork team. We’ve seen a lot of hard forks lately. New coins are distributed to original token holders according to predefined proportion.

Why projects issue airdrops?

Airdrop is a promotion. It can serve the following goals:

• Spread the news about the project. It is an easy way to reach thousands of people through social networks.
• Build community in social accounts. It is the fastest way to get followers on twitter, members on telegram group and etc. A project needs a community as all potential investors look at it. It also helps to spread news.
• Create user base. Any token/coin/platform needs users. Airdrop helps to get many users at the very beginning.
• Get people to pass KYC. Some airdrops require to pass through KYC. It is done for several reasons. Some projects need to ensure people from restricted areas do not participate. Some simply want to push you to invest in their project.

Is an airdrop a free money?

No. Airdrops are reward for doing tasks: join telegram group, follow twitter, repost, invite other people, post something, subscribe for email and etc. You do the task and get your reward (possibly get your reward). Sometimes the reward is equal for the task, sometimes you get more for a simple tasks, sometimes you are asked to pass KYC for 1$.

Who benefits from airdrops?

The main benefiter of any airdrop is the issuer. For scam ICO airdrop is the best way to promote itself. Always remember this. The next benefiters are airdrop aggregators. There are a lot of telegram groups, twitter accounts and etc. that post airdrop notifications. 4 out of 5 airdrops have a referral system. When you reference another person you get some token as a reward. A popular aggregator can have hundreds or thousands referrals. If they receive 0.1 – 3 USD for each referral you can make a profitable business out of it. The last benefiters are airdrop participants. They can earn some tokens that can potentially cost something.

Who can participate in an airdrop?

Usually airdrops follow the same rules as ICO. If you can participate in an ICO, you can also participate in airdrop. If you live in a country banned from participating in an ICO like USA or China you may be banned from airdrop as well.

What do you need to participate in an airdrop?

Minimal requirements to participate in an airdrop is to have an email account and cryptocurrency wallet (ETH address is the most used). For most airdrops you will also need social accounts: telegram, twitter, facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Instagram and etc.

How to check an airdrop before participating?

The same way as you would use for an ICO. Check vision, whitepaper, rating and so on. As you are not investing in an ICO, you don’t need to spend much time. Try to check ICO profile on platforms like ICObench. If project has a garbage rating, you don’t need its tokens. They will not cost anything and will never hit a good exchange. Check estimated value yourself. Airdrop aggregators usually give it. Check token price on ICO and multiply it on the amount of tokens you will get. Remember, that this estimation will not be correct for a bad project. If token will never hit a major exchange it will not cost anything. Also keep in mind that exchanges can have deposit minimum value. For example you can receive 50 tokens from an airdrop, and deposit minimum is 100 tokens.

How to find airdrops?

The best way is to follow airdrop aggregators. You don’t need to waste your own time.

How to get your tokens?

It depends on an airdrop. If it is an ERC20 token, it will be sent to your ETH address. If it is a token from other platform like NEO, Waves it will be sent to a corresponding wallet. If it is a coin, it will be sent via its own blockchain. If an airdrop was initiated on exchange/platform, tokens/coins will be on your exchange/platform account.

How to sell airdrop tokens/coins?

If it is a normal project it will hit an exchange where you can sell your tokens. Some tokens can be sold on DEXes like Forkdelta, IDEX and etc. Most airdrop tokens can’t be sold at all as they were issued by a scam project and don’t have any value at all.

Can you be scammed by an airdrop?

Yes, some airdrops are pure scam. They are issued to steal your personal data, your social accounts or your cryptocurrency. You should treat any airdrop as possible scam and protect yourself.

What rules should you follow to protect yourself?

There are many rules to follow. I will give the major ones with some explanations.

• Never use your real email. Do you like spam? You will get a lot of spam mails on this account. Also your real email is used on exchanges and social accounts. Don’t give it to anyone if you don’t want to lose your accounts.
• Don’t use your main crypto address. You may need to use it of DEXes and you can be easily robbed.
• Never use your other passwords. If you need to subscribe with a password, never use a password you are using on your phone, PC, social account, exchange and etc. Scammers will use it to rob you.
• Airdrops don’t ask for money or private keys. If you are asked to give transfer your money to get more money, it is probably a scam.
  Protect your personal data. Don’t give too much of your personal data for a few dollars. It can be used against you.
  

Disclaimer: Everything writtent in this thread is my personal opinion and expirience. It is not a financial advice of any kind.