I know, it's too late to do an annual recap post but I wasn't available for past few months. But I'd like to go it away without mentioning that 2020 was the most remarkable year in my crypto life and I'm immensely grateful for what it brought.

Although it's the pandemic that comes first to the mind when one talks about 2020; it's the airdrops for me 😊

For long I had heard that people have accumulated thousands of dollars through airdrops and free faucet, I never thought it to be true. 2020 changed my perspective to airdrops.

Four years back I tried picking up random airdrops of coins in lieu of some trivial social media tasks but I soon realized that it can't get any significant amount through it. Even the time spent in collecting and managing their wallet was not compensated for ...barring one. One of those coins where I put half-hearted attempt peaked to $4 in 2017 bull run. I had 200 of those with me ...or so I assumed.

2017-2019:

When I came to know that I've some $800 worth of SmartCash lying in my wallet, I tried to withdraw it. But alas, I had messed up in saving its private keys. I saved the forum password and though it was my private key. It was a good lesson for me. After that I frustratingly tried to accumulate many more airdropped coins only to quit that kind of work as it was actually a waste of energy. It was clear to me that it's like acquiring a lottery ticket of which some rare coin may hit some unprecedented price levels and that too for a short while.

Byte Ball (now Obyte) was the biggest airdrop I received was in 2018. But I Hodled it until now only to realize that its golden days ain't coming back soon. I sold them last week only for $30/GB. I also couldn't cash out EOSio airdrops in time. So airdrops didn't lure me any more.

$HIVE 🙂

But 2020 changed my perspective to airdrops and claimdrops. It all started with HIVE. I don't think I need to say more on it. Although HIVE airdrop triggered sale of all Steem Engine coins that eroded almost all of my Steem Engine net worth which was as much as my total STEEM holdings at that time. But I was still happy for my HIVE airdrop. BLURT airdrop added on to it :)

UNI

Later in the summer, the rise of DeFi changed everything. The use-based airdrops that DeFi projects brought was a welcome change than random airdrops prior to 2020. Wallet airdrops like AWC, TWT,LON etc. were awesome too.

The biggest and most talked about airdrop was of UNI from Uniswap. Although it was worth only $1200 at that time, Hodling it gave me a nice 6 grand!
I knew it will get bigger than this but I sold it 4 days back to accumulate HIVE as committed in this post.

After UNI set the trend, many more airdrops followed like BADGER, MIR, 1INCH, LON, OPIUM, COMBO and the list goes on. The beauty of most of these airdrops is that you should have used their platforms before they came out with their coins. So now people have started using all other platforms that haven't came up with their coins yet in the hope to get their airdrops, when and if, they are there.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get BADGER (the team hasn't still resolved the airdrop issue for the left out people and I ain't hoping much from them now though they say they are still working on it). I never used imToken wallet as I can't use every wallet out there. So no LON for me. Also, I didn't get OPIUM as I wasn't a user as I didn't believe p2p insurance will take off at this stage. But seeing their coin's performance, it's evident that I was wrong. At current rate I'm not willing to mine it to avail there early bird airdrop. I also didn't had sufficient ETH left in my wallet when I tried to use Furucombo. So no COMBO for me.

We can't get all the airdrops but there is certainly money flowing in this space right now. If you're smart and active, you can accumulate a lot!

I hear there were so many more airdrops in the DeFi community during my absence from the market. Do you know any airdrop that I need to claim?

So what's 2021 going to be in terms of airdrops?

Would 2021 be better than 2020?

I think if users remain active and adventurous enough to try and test new platforms and products, they can hope for many rewarding airdrops this year also.

Although it's difficult to tell what to Hodl for HODL based airdrops but I know a few coins from this ecosystem. Hodling HIVE can get you LARYNX from 3 Speak, HODLING LEO may get you their governance coin, HODLING WLS (Whaleshares) can get you SPLASH (on Cosmos chain) and similarly HODLING BLURT may get you BLING (on Cosmos chain).

Future use-based airdrops of 2021

In the hope to get future use-based airdrop, you can also try to use famous DeFi platforms which have no token as of now. Who knows, they may launch their token in future and choose to reward their early users with airdrop?
How about trying dYdX, Zapper, Zerion, Opyn, Paraswap, DeFiSaver, InstaDapp, OpenSea. Set protocol from tokensets etc. Although Metamask too don't have its token I don't need to mention it as most people have already used it. But did you ever use its swap feature?

According to Dapp Radar, dYdX, Zapper and InstaDapp have the top chances to offer such user-based airdrops. Let's see :)

• What other airdrops do you know of?
• What were your most treasured airdrop coin of 2020?

If you wish to get a small $10 Freeway Token airdrop at its launch from the AuBit, the Asset Management platform for retail investors, do use my referral link (you will need to give away your name and email address):

https://upvir.al/ref/QH52735955