• @itsmect@monero.town
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    1810 months ago

    Essentially it’s a giveaway/handout/distribution to people who fulfill some criteria. There was one coin that gave away significant amounts (>1k USD) to early users and since then it has become kinda popular. Because who would turn down something free?!

    Except its not free. For starters, you’d usually have to pay significant network fees to claim the airdrop, and second the money has to come from somewhere. It’s the same with government printing money and distributing some to the people, in the end we all pay for it with inflation. So yeah, pretty scammy overall.

    • @Sigh_Bafanada@lemmy.world
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      310 months ago

      To play devil’s advocate, while I have little doubts that these specific ones are scammy, there are many cases where they have been genuinely good value. In general, this is when a product requires an established user base in order to be effective , so they’ll have an airdrop shortly after opening and then another a few months into the product’s life. The aim being that if X number of people try it a bit, hopefully a proportion will continue using it and make the whole product viable.