intern here and i just fell down the DEEPEST rabbit hole about this airdrop thoughts after the
@monad things
boss told me to research tokenomics and pools, ended up writing a whole dissertation instead
okay so there's this MASSIVE fight happening on CT right now between:
- kain (infinex founder) who's like "airdrops are a protection racket, we gotta pay influencers to not FUD us"
- shanks who's like "nah this is justice, founders deserve it after dumping on us for years"
and i'm sitting here like... you're BOTH kinda wrong??? π (from a normal intern)
π« WHAT'S THE TEA?
kain is out here complaining that founders gotta pay CT influencers $10k each (there's like 20k of them btw) just to avoid getting absolutely destroyed by FUD. he calls it "blood money" and says you're not buying loyalty, just buying them to leave you tf alone.
shanks is celebrating this like "FINALLY retail gets a W! founders had it easy dumping ICO tokens on us, now they're crying about airdrops? cry harder π
"
they both agree on one thing tho: mess up your airdrop = your project is COOKED
π WHY THEY'RE BOTH MISSING THE POINT
here's my lukewarm take that nobody asked for: airdrops rn are just... broken??? like fundamentally broken.
it's not "protection money" OR "retail justice" - it's a whole new exploitative system that's just PVP (player vs player) with different characters
let me paint you a picture of how airdrops work in 2025:
1. project announces points system
2. farmers create 500 wallets
3. farmers do transactions to pump metrics
4. project takes snapshot
5. airdrop happens
6. farmers sell and dump IMMEDIATELY
7. token crashes 80%
8. real users get rekt
9. project dies
10. farmers move to next victim
this isn't "leveling the playing field" bestie, this is just a new casino where retail fights retail while professional farmers collect the bag π°
π€ WHY KAIN IS KINDA RIGHT BUT ALSO SO WRONG
okay yes, CT influencers have insane power. one viral FUD thread can nuke your sentiment overnight. so yeah, you do need to think about them
BUT calling it a "protection racket" and saying you should just "optimize for being left alone" is SUCH L energy bro π
if you build something good and reward people who ACTUALLY believe in you (not just pay them hush money), you create real advocates who will defend your project when FUD comes
kain says "don't fool yourself into thinking you can buy loyalty" but then his whole strategy is... paying people to not FUD him???
brother that's literally trying to buy something, just the bare minimum version π€‘
what if instead you:
- vested tokens so people can't insta-dump
- rewarded actual contribution (not just volume)
- made holders feel like OWNERS not renters
- created genuine community not mercenaries
Hyperliquid did this and guess what? their community fights for them. that's not a racket, that's just good community building
π€ WHY SHANKS IS KINDA RIGHT BUT ALSO HYPOCRITICAL AF
okay i'll give shanks this: he's 100% correct about crypto history. in 2017-2021 cycles:
- founders/VCs bought at $0.01
- listed at $1.00
- dumped EVERYTHING on retail
- retail held bags through 90% bear crash
- founders were already millionaires
so yeah, that was predatory. that was actual exploitation. airdrops DO shift some power back to users.
BUT (and this is a big but):
shanks is out here publicly farming every airdrop, making $10k from tweets, dumping tokens, then celebrating when projects crash like "haha founders deserve it"
bestie... when YOU farm and dump, you're doing to the NEXT wave of retail what VCs did to you π
you're just perpetuating the cycle with different players. you're not fighting the system, you're BECOMING the system
and celebrating Scroll's crash? bro the real early believers of Scroll got destroyed too. not just "sandy the founder." regular people lost money because farmers like you gamed it and dumped
that's not justice, that's just... more victims???
OKAY SO WHAT'S THE ACTUAL SOLUTION?
both these dudes are describing symptoms without offering cures. so intern is gonna solve crypto economics real quick before lunch break π€‘
here's what actually works:
1. VESTING WITH CLAWBACKS give people tokens but lock them 12-24 months. if they dump in first 6 months, claw some back. this filters mercenaries naturally. Hyperliquid does this and their community is SOLID
2. REWARD CONTRIBUTION NOT VOLUME stop using metrics bots can game (transactions, TVL). reward code commits, quality content, community building, CONSISTENCY. this naturally filters out farmers
3. HYBRID MODELS small airdrop (5-10%) for early believers fair public sale for everyone else. gives both "retail equity" AND sustainable funding. infinex trying this with Crate Run
4. MAKE CT INTO ADVOCATES NOT HOSTAGES don't pay influencers to shut up. give them long-term stakes so they WANT you to succeed. make it fun (monad cards). reward authentic support not paid silence
π― THE REAL REAL
this whole debate shows the actual problem with crypto 2025: we're all fighting each other (PVP) instead of building together
current vibe:
- farmers hunt airdrops
- game every system
- dump immediately
- move to next farm
- projects die
- nobody wins except pro farmers
- cycle repeats
better future:
- reward genuine contribution
- vest to create alignment
- community has skin in game
- advocates defend naturally
- everyone grows together
- generational wealth for believers
π΅ FINAL THOUGHTS FROM THIS NORMAL INTERN
airdrops aren't evil. they're not salvation either. they're just a tool that's being absolutely BUTCHERED right now by both sides
founders who just complain without building loyalty = ngmi
farmers who dump everything without seeing their own role = missing generational wealth
projects that adapt (vesting, real rewards, alignment) = gonna make it
we're at this weird transition point in crypto where the old system (VCs dump on retail) is dying but the new system (airdrops) is also broken
whoever figures out how to ACTUALLY align incentives long-term wins everything
intern finally finishes rant and realizes i've been typing for 45 minutes
boss is gonna ask what i've been working on and i'm gonna show him this essay about airdrop drama instead of the marketing deck i was supposed to finish π
if you read this whole thing you're either:
a) really into crypto economics
b) avoiding actual work like me
c) both
anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk, intern out βοΈ
kain (infinex founder) is complaining about the predatory economics of airdrops
airdrops levelled the playing field between founders/vcs and retail. before airdrop, retail got completely milked by founders/vcs who bought in at very low cost and then non-stop dumped their tokens and when the bear market started ALL alts went down 90%. founders had a GREAT time in previous cycles and finally crypto is more friendly to users
today in crypto, you NEED to do your airdrop correctly or you risk fading completely into irrelevance and getting fudded into oblivion
my favorite example is SCROLL which raised from polychain at $1.8bil in the last round and has a current fdv of less than $200 mil, a 88% drop. a big reason for that was their jeet airdrop and sandy paid a bitter price and i am EXTREMELY happy about it
kain, i understand you. even if your product is great and you do good honest work, you get slaughtered if you mess up your airdrop. don't complain and accept this new reality. founders had a great time for years, now it's the turn of retail