Posted April 11, 2024 at 1:35 pm EST.
Points systems have become a popular, offchain mechanism for crypto protocols to track and measure the engagement of early adopters. A wide variety of crypto projects have been using points to determine how much of an airdrop allocation crypto users should receive.
For example, non-fungible tokens marketplace Blur, restaking platform EtherFi, and Solana-based DeFi protocol Jito are three recent crypto projects that have implemented points programs and conducted airdrops as a means to reward early adopters and enact a governance mechanism through their native tokens.
In theory, points don’t have any economic value and don’t automatically guarantee an allocation of a protocol’s native token. And yet some people act as if points do, speculating on the potential value of an airdrop allocation. In some circumstances, often referred to as sybil farming, people use several addresses and equip programmatic bots to transact on a specific protocol over a long period of time to garner as many points as possible.
The use of points programs has increased among crypto protocols as investors, developers, and early adopters have started deploying them after Blur jump-started the practice in May 2022.
Here’s a list of the top ten crypto protocols and projects that have enacted a points program but have not yet had a token airdrop at the time of publication, ranked by total value locked (TVL). We’ve also included one crypto wallet provider and a non-fungible token marketplace to give two notable examples of projects that don’t have a TVL associated with them.
1. EigenLayer
As the second largest decentralized finance protocol across all blockchain networks behind Lido Finance, EigenLayer boasts a TVL exceeding $13.6 billion since it launched limited restaking on Ethereum mainnet in June 2023.
The date for EigenLayer’s highly-anticipated airdrop has yet to be disclosed, but observers on social media are expecting an airdrop to come this quarter, especially after the team announced on Tuesday the launch of EigenDA on mainnet, the first active validated service deployed on EigenLayer. Research firm Messari indicated that the airdrop will happen in Q2 of 2024, citing an interview from late December with EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan.
2. Blast
The layer 2 scaling rollup had a points program before its network became operational, highlighting how points programs have played an integral part in the origins of some crypto protocols. While Blast was still testing, the team opened up deposits into its smart contracts to enable crypto users to bridge ETH to the layer 2 network and earn a yield from their deposits, as well as accumulate points, which according to its website, can be redeemed in May.
The Blast team has also unveiled on social media how users can multiply their points. For instance, last week, the team on X wrote, “Multipliers are NOW LIVE. Use any featured Spot Dex or Perp Dex to boost your Blast Points.”
Blast’s total value locked stands at over $2.92 billion, a 192% increase from $1 billion at the start of the year, making Blast the fourth largest layer 2 blockchain network on Ethereum, behind Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, according to research website L2Beat.
Read More: What Is Blast on Ethereum? A Beginner’s Guide
3. Kamino
Points programs have also made their way into lending protocols such as Kamino – a Solana-based platform that has almost $1.31 billion in total value locked, up more than 482% from $225 million at the start of 2024, according to DefiLlama.
Kamino’s first season of points concluded on March 31. At press time, early adopters are able to see the number of tokens Kamino has allocated to their address, a sign that KMNO airdrop claims are on the verge of going live. The team has said that it plans to conduct its token genesis event in early Q2 of 2024.
Kamino’s second season for earning points is already underway.
“Kamino Points is powered by a robust points system that can award points at an extremely granular level of protocol usage, allowing us to implement different points rates & boosts for: collateral assets, debt assets, collateral/debt combinations, liquidity vaults, and automated strategies such as Long/Short & Leveraged Staking,” the team wrote in its documents.
Read More: Solana DeFi Protocol Kamino’s Announcement of Airdrop Snapshot Sparks Controversy
4. Swell
Swell, an Ethereum staking protocol with more than $1.23 billion in total value locked, has implemented a points program that allows people to earn what it calls “pearls,” redeemable for SWELL tokens at its token genesis event.
According to a blog post, “Each pearl represents a portion of the $SWELL airdrop, and will ultimately give holders governance tokens [for Swell’s decentralized autonomous organization].” Crypto users are able to earn pearls by holding Swell’s liquid staking token swETH, and providing liquidity to certain eligible pools.
Swell has also announced plans to launch a layer 2 blockchain network that specializes in liquid restaked assets on EigenLayer. If crypto traders transfer assets into the Swell L2 pre-launch deposit contract, they are not only eligible for airdrops from both Swell and projects building on the Swell’s rollup, but traders would also earn additional points for their deposited tokens.
Speculators on PolyMarket have wagered about $9,600 on whether Swell will have an airdrop by June 30, with 95% betting it will and 5% betting it won’t.
5. Kelp DAO
Kelp DAO, a liquid restaking solution for public blockchain networks, has rolled out a points program as well. With a TVL of $821 million – a 486% increase since Jan. 1 when its TVL stood at $140 million – Kelp DAO introduced “Kelp Miles” which serve as an “additional layer of incentives to restakers” that are complementary to the points users earn on EigenLayer, per a blog post from Dec. 2023.
Additionally, Kelp DAO rolled out a token, with the ticker KEP, an acronym for “Kelp Earned Points.” This token is neither a governance token for Kelp DAO nor for EigenLayer, but rather a token for “EigenLayer Points that Kelp’s restakers earn,” according to Kelp DAO’s documents.
6. Marginfi
Marginfi, a lending platform native to the Solana blockchain network, has a TVL of $543.42 million, a roughly 50% increase since Jan. 1 when users had only locked $364 million into Marginfi.
While Marginfi’s points system is a way for users to accumulate points based on their usage and interaction with the DeFi application, Marginfi’s documents highlight how points don’t have a monetary value nor guarantee “the availability of any particular redemption of reward.”
Read More: $130 Million Withdrawn From Marginfi as CEO Departs
Since Dec. 2023, Marginfi users have been discussing in the protocol’s community forum the possible mechanics of Marginfi’s token, in addition to the criteria for addresses to receive an airdrop allocation. While Marginfi’s token and airdrop have been confirmed by the team, the timeframe for when the lending platform’s token genesis event is not clear.
7. Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid, a perpetual trading exchange with about $373 million in total value locked, also has a points program.
Hyperliquid has a tab on its interface that shows total points and rankings relative to other users. “1,000,000 points will be distributed weekly to users for 6 months, starting Nov. 1. Points are meant to reward Hyperliquid users who contribute to the protocol’s success,” according to Hyperliquid’s website.
Speculators on prediction platform Polymarket have placed a 96% chance that Hyperliquid will conduct its airdrop by June 30.
Data from blockchain analytics firm Artemis shows that Hyperliquid has been the leader in daily trading volume among platforms for perpetual future products in 2024, generating between $923 million and $1.8 billion in daily trading volume over the past week.
8. Drift
Drift, a Solana-based exchange for perpetual futures, has yet to launch its token but has been conducting a points program for several months.
The protocol has $317 million in total locked value, and according to its documents, Drift rewards its users in a few ways, such as by acting as a market maker by providing liquidity on the platform’s order book or as a trader, generating trading volume on Drift’s perpetual and spot markets.
Drift forbids particular behaviors such as wash trading, a term referring to the deceptive practice of artificially inflating trading volume, indicating that a user engaging in these behaviors “may result in disqualification from earning points for a specific week or, in more severe cases, for the entire duration of the program,” per Drift’s documents.
9. Parcl
Parcl, a perpetual trading platform focused on real estate markets, ended the third season of its points program on April 1 and is currently finalizing its initial allocation of PRCL. As Parcl’s points landing page says, the initial allocation of PRCL is “almost here.”
While Parcl is one step closer to its token genesis event set to occur “early next week,” users can participate in Parcl’s other ongoing incentive program called “Perpetual Points” and accrue points that count toward the next claim of Parcl’s native token. “Perpetual Points will culminate in a second distribution of PRCL to the community in the back half of 2Q 2024. This distribution will be the largest within the Perpetual Points program,” per its announcement on Tuesday.
According to a blog post, “Points earned in wallets that participated in any ineligible activity, such as delta-neutral trading, brazen & substantial Sybil activity, and unreported self-referrals, have been forfeited.”
Parcl’s TVL stands at $151.7 million, a nearly 517% jump from Jan. 1 when its figure stood at $24.6 million.
10. Friend.Tech
Friend.Tech is a decentralized social network that allows users to invest in “shares” of individuals, which unlocks “a direct line of communication to them by gaining entry into an exclusive chatroom,” according to its documents.
Friend.Tech has four side tabs on the interface of its platform, with the last called “Airdrop,” and on this tab, users can see how many points they’ve gained and their ranking compared to other users.
In a post on X, the Friend.Tech team indicated that 100% of its onchain points would be distributed to users in the community instead of venture capital firms. The date for Friend.Tech’s token genesis event has yet to be announced, but the team earlier this week mentioned the ticker $FRIEND ahead of the launch of its V2 upgrade, scheduled for “the week after April 20.”
Crypto users have locked in about $40.7 million into Friend.Tech’s smart contracts, data from DefiLlama shows.
In addition, here are two significant crypto projects with points programs that have not had an airdrop yet that do not operate with a total value locked amount.
Magic Eden
Magic Eden is a marketplace for non-fungible tokens on several different blockchain networks—namely Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polygon. Collectors, creators, and traders can participate in Magic Eden’s rewards programs, which entail earning “Diamonds,” Magic Eden’s version of points.
Users can earn Diamonds by listing, making offers, and buying NFTs on Magic Eden. A single Diamond is trading on secondary markets for $0.1111, an 18.5% increase in the past 24 hours, according to points marketplace Whales.
The points program for Magic Eden provides “rewards that cover all past, present, and future actions on the platform,” as stated on its website. Magic Eden’s team has yet to reveal details about a token airdrop.
Magic Eden generated $11.48 million in trading volume for the week ending on April 7, 2024 from over 2,500 traders, according to a Dune dashboard created by Hildebert Mouiliere, aka Hildobby, a data scientist at VC firm Dragonfly.
Rainbow
Ethereum-based self-custodial wallet Rainbow has also adopted a points program. “Rainbow Points are the first step towards including our community in the future success of Rainbow,” wrote the team on its website. “It’s a program designed to make your Rainbow experience more fun and rewarding.”
Crypto users who have a Rainbow wallet can earn points by performing basic onchain actions, such as swapping cryptocurrencies, bridging assets, and minting NFTs in Rainbow. On X on Tuesday, Rainbow indicated that users can earn twice as many points for their onchain actions if they transact on layer 2 blockchain network Blast.
Crypto traders on Polymarket see a 31% chance that Rainbow will conduct a token airdrop by June 30, wagering almost $7,000 on the proposition.
