TLDR

• Nansen created an “Airdrop Pro'' tag for the most profitable airdropper wallets, filtered by the number of airdrops and total USD amount received.

• The report outlines the methodology behind the new label and highlights some interesting findings based on the data.

• We cover the top interacted contracts for the ‘Airdrop Pro’ tags and lay out a framework for identifying these opportunities alongside actionable resources

Introduction

Airdrops are a novel mechanism in crypto that help bootstrap communities behind a product. Of course, these airdrops can be very lucrative with some of the top airdrop recipients receiving well over 7 figures alone. Given the amount of gamed airdrops, these wallets and strategies can be uncovered on-chain. Enter Nansen, where we will use this report to help navigate users to find new airdrop opportunities and to track the top airdropper wallet activity.

Nansen Airdrop Pro Label + Methodology

To begin the report, we needed to curate the top airdrop recipients over the past few years. In order to do so, we created a multi-step process to find the most notable airdrops and filtered them down using multiple factors:

1. Identifying top projects who airdropped their tokens to their users
2. Filtering for airdrops that had high USD value and were on Ethereum
3. Identification of corresponding contracts and airdrop distributor addresses using Nansen and open-source data

4. Compiling of airdrop recipients based on the contracts found in 3, with 15 total airdrops being used

5. Cross-checking recipients across airdrops, applying filters and surfacing actionable insights

After we created our airdrop recipient list, we wanted to define what the ‘Airdrop Pro’ label would entail. Our goal in this was to find the high signal airdrop recipients from those that may be noisy in this very large list. To find these high signal addresses, we drilled down on addresses to aggregate all of their airdrop income over the 15 identified airdrops - sum up all of the airdrop's USD value for a specific address. To be in the curated list, the following characteristics must be met to receive the Airdropper label:

• Greater than $100k in airdrop profits (Airdrops are valued based on the 30d average after the distribution start)
• The $100k in profits was made over 3 or more unique airdrops
• Last outgoing transaction since the beginning of 2022 (filter for active wallets)

Top Interacting Contracts

After coming up with the ‘Airdrop Pro’ wallet tag, we drilled down on the data to find some interesting insights and make our findings actionable for potential future airdrops.

Our goal is to find the top counterparty contracts of the ‘Airdrop Pro’ tag and filter it down to contracts that have not yet released a token; thus, we are left with the main protocols that are likely to have airdrops. Below, we have a table of all of the associated contracts, the number of unique ‘Airdrop Pro’ addresses interacting with them, Nansen dashboards for each contract, and links to relevant articles/reports that outline steps on how to maximize the probability of receiving an airdrop based on historical events.

_Distinct Airdrop Pro Count are wallets with the ‘Airdrop Pro’ label interacting with the contract Distinct Address Count are addresses that were active in the month of May 2022 Source: Nansen Query_

Notable wallets

Further, to find interesting wallets (inside/outside of the Airdrop Pro label) we drilled down on all of the wallets from the measured airdrops. We measured the nonce of each wallet as a gauge for wallet activity and sorted by the $ amount of airdrops received. Thus, we were able to sort out specific sybil addresses and other high signal airdrop wallets that were either really profitable or made lots of money per nonce. Some of the criteria we measured included the following:

• How much money did addresses make?

  • Total USD amount in Airdrops

• How much money has this wallet made per each transaction on-chain?

- USD airdrop/Nonce

To highlight, here are some interesting wallets that were very successful in their on-chain activity that yielded lucrative returns sorted by total USD received.

_Source: Nansen Query Data as of May 2022_

Takeaway on Future Airdrops

Given we have broken down the list of Airdrop Pro labels, how can we make use of the data? We laid out each protocol above and have given the breakdown of the number of Airdrop Pro wallet interactions, Nansen data and associated steps to maximize the probability of receiving the airdrops. Outside of the mentioned airdrops above, we will launch an alpha-exclusive dashboard listing the top counterparties of the 'Airdrop Pro' tag in the future.

Final Takeaways

• Airdrops have proven to be a lucrative reward for early users of protocols or simply those who are well aware of the airdrop landscape. As seen with the Airdrop Pro wallets, some of these airdrops can be speculated upon using on-chain data. In times of sideways or downward trending markets, positioning oneself for airdrops is a way to reward oneself for being an early user of a specific protocol that may not currently have a token.

• Given mainnet fees are lower due to less activity, participating with any of the associated protocols is much cheaper than it was a few months ago. This may make airdrop hunting more opportunistic for users given the smaller opportunity cost of paying fees.