Bankless: Five of the most eye-catching airdrops in 2024

Author: Jack Inabinet, Bankless; Translator: Wuzhu, Golden Finance

In 2024, cryptocurrency developers mastered the art of airdrops. Many protocol teams took advantage of the bullish momentum across the industry and attracted a large number of new users to chase airdropped tokens.

From STRK's disappointing performance to record-breaking hype, each protocol's differentiated approach to token delivery reveals valuable insights into how token distribution shapes ecosystems, inspires innovation, and catalyzes broader market trends.

Today, we discuss the impact of the five most interesting airdrops in 2024.

Jupiter (JUP)

On January 31, Jupiter's first airdrop put 1 billion JUP into the hands of early users. This is the first of four annual airdrop events that will end at the end of January 2027 and distribute a total of 4 billion JUP to the community.

Simply by using the Jupiter exchange aggregator before November 2, 2023, individual wallets can receive airdrop allocations ranging from 1k to 100k JUP tokens, meaning JUP claimers can expect to receive between $700 and $70,000 in free assets per wallet from this airdrop.

What’s Special:

The JUP airdrop offers participants nearly six-figure rewards for simple on-chain activity and solidifies Solana’s position as a target chain for airdrop hunters now that liquidity staking protocol Jito’s airdrop has concluded. Over the next six weeks, SOL’s price will double as the masses begin to join the ecosystem in hopes of grabbing the next JUP-sized opportunity.

Starknet (STRK)

After three years of development, Starknet finally launched its token in February, announcing an epic plan to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars to 1.3 million addresses in the most extensive cryptocurrency airdrop ever.

Individual claims ranged from 111.1 to 180k STRK, and while recipients enjoyed generous payouts at the token launch, others complained that arbitrary eligibility criteria unfairly excluded many users from the airdrop.

Unfortunately, despite a notable recovery across the cryptocurrency market, the STRK token has underperformed throughout 2024, trading 75% below its post-launch high at the time of analysis.

What’s Special: Starknet was one of the most anticipated airdrops of 2024, and while the technologically innovative L2 success generated significant gains for STRK recipients, it struggled to gain traction throughout the year due to a lack of standout on-chain applications. This airdrop highlighted the extremely high saturation of L2 investment opportunities, leading to a gradual fading of enthusiasm for the industry as a whole.

EigenLayer (EIGEN)

As Ethereum heads into 2024, all eyes are on “restaking,” a novel form of economic security that uses re-staked ETH to provide slashing insurance to on-chain applications.

Many in the community hoped that this breakout phenomenon would prove a revolutionary use case for severely depressed Ethereum, and while ETH/BTC continued to trend downward throughout the year, emerging protocols at the forefront of re-staking did succeed in sparking demand for their tokens; EigenLayer alone amassed over 5M ETH before announcing its airdrop on April 29th.

What’s Special:

Recipients of EIGEN were frustrated by the fact that this airdrop was initially non-transferable, and the protocol has been criticized for failing to reward all airdrop participants, but the team has been working to correct the community’s concerns.

Liquid Restaking Token (LRT) protocols like ether.fi also distributed additional incentives and fueled the DeFi credit boom as on-chain participants began to leverage LRT.

EigenLayer’s success in the absence of a live restaking product demonstrates the extremely low barrier to entry for many crypto projects to achieve product-market fit, and forces other protocols to release their own points program deposit contracts regardless of whether they actually have a live application.

Ethena (ENA)

The Ethena points program went live on February 19th, the moment the app accepted its first public deposits; Season 1 ENA token rewards became available on April 2nd, and Season 2 activities were immediately launched.

Thanks to a sizable airdrop incentive program and its timely launch in the hottest funding rate environment of the year, USDe supply expanded unrestricted to $2.39 billion by mid-April, then stagnated as enthusiasm for the ENA airdrop waned and crypto market conditions cooled.

What’s Special:

The ENA airdrop demonstrated the advantages of a well-designed points program and successfully gained widespread attention for Ethena’s synthetic dollar in early 2024.

Ethena used clear points qualification criteria, rewarded relatively risky on-chain activities such as re-staking Ethena native assets in DeFi, and demonstrated that a short follow-up to a second airdrop season enabled the protocol to reap greater benefits from airdrop activities.

Hyperliquid (HYPE)

On November 29, Hyperliquid airdropped 310 million HYPE (over 30% of the total token supply) to over 94,000 early adopters.

As HYPE’s value surged to over $33 in the following weeks, the multi-billion dollar airdrop became the largest cryptocurrency distribution ever and replicated the success of the earliest airdrops of this cycle to a larger number of participants, awarding many users with six-figure token bonuses.

Nearly 70% of the Hyperliquid airdrop was reserved for users, making the HYPE airdrop appear (at least on the surface) more equal in its distribution scheme than competitors, which typically reserve the vast majority of tokens for team and investor allocations.

What's special:

Although the applications built by Hyperliquid do not have a viable decentralized roadmap and are very different from traditional crypto design practices, the success of this airdrop demonstrates the crypto industry's desire for high-performance products.

HYPE's success coincides with the general boom in the crypto market at the end of 2024, during which investors began to ask fewer questions and imitate more.