Hello everyone !

Given the recent surge of interest in Airdrops, there has been a proliferation of channels, frequently scammy. I thought that a small article is therefore timely.

What is an Airdrop?

An Airdrop is a free distribution of a token / crypto in exchange of an action, mostly for an advertising purpose. These actions are quite variable and often ask to follow the official account of a crypto on Twitter, make a retweet, join the crypto channel on Telegram, sponsor people or simply give his Ethereum address and wait for the tokens.

Are Airdrops scams ?

In theory, it's hard to get scammed when we're given something. However the answer is a bit more complicated.
In practice, scams exist and it is therefore important to discriminate the different categories of Airdrop and their purpose.
The pre-ICO with a good project => Their goal is to be known, to raise the hype, to have articles about them and people who will follow their updates on social networks. This serves several purposes such as standing out from the crowd given the huge current number of projects, to obtain a larger number of users, which it is essential for social networks or exchanges, and of course to make the ICO a success.
The pre-ICO with a bad project or a scam => The first goal is to be known but for a different purpose. The major point is to bring a lot of people to their website through referrals, for example, with the assumption that a small part of them will participate in the ICO. For the organizers it's great, it does not cost much in advertising and the virality of the Airdrop can bring a lot of people. Additionally, if people are asked to do an action like retweeting or giving a nice message, it can drown the negative and critical comments under the mass of positive and sponsored comments.
The post-ICO => Airdrops post-ICO are less frequent but generally better. If the company has already raised the money it needed, one can legitimately assume that it does not want to take yours. It is simply trying to increase its notoriety and / or its user base. Sometimes the ICO is cancelled because the presale was an unexpected success. The company therefore produces an Airdrop to increase the number of tokens owners.
There are still other categories but I think the main ones are here.

How to choose / find a good Airdrop?

A surge in Telegram, Facebook groups and Twitter channels has happened lately since most Airdrops offer referral. Unfortunately most of these channels advertise all the occurring Airdrops, scammy and not scammy, and sometimes purposely lie about the amounts it is possible to obtain. I recently created my channel to give a list of selected Airdrops based on a set of defined criteria => experience of the team, solidity of the project, purpose of the airdrop, roadmap, amount given, difficulty, chance of success of the project and difficulty of the airdrop.
Of course, the list is unlikely to be exhaustive so you should always follow multiple sources of information. However, there are some signs that can alert you of a bad channel => A lot of Airdrops, an exaggerated amount of tokens to be won or links with referrals.
Tips for being effective / reducing risk:
I advise you to create a second email, a second Twitter and a second user in Chrome/Firefox, which will be dedicated to Airdrops (top right, click on your name or on person 1 => manage users, add a user).
Also, never communicate your private key and install nothing on your computer (the malware / virus can be hidden in the new wallet...).
You must also be very vigilant when asked to give your identity papers. Only a very few good airdrops will require a KYC. If this is common for ICO it's less so for Airdrops. And finally, for Airdrops pre-ICO, do not invest your own money even if the promises are beautiful. This is especially true at this moment when the average profitability of the ICO is shrinking.

How much can you earn with Airdrops?

Well again this is a big question, it can go from nothing for the scammy Airdrops to hundreds of dollars for the best ones, which are rare. The best strategy is, in my opinion, to sign up for the right Airdrops and wait for a pearl. At worst, this will give you a little money and cost only a bit of your time.

What is the best way to become rich with cryptos?

Airdrops are a good way to get started without investing your own money, especially if you are new and / or have little money. However, the best way to get rich in cryptos is to invest in yourself and increase your knowledge. Train, learn constantly, keep a critical mind - and eventually - earn money.

For those who appreciated my article I created a Telegram channel where I post the best airdrops: https://t.me/Airdrops_Top

There is also giveaways and we currently have a one here: https://twitter.com/Traknet1/status/980446933201358848!