Airdrop VS Giveaway : What Is The Difference ?

The crypto ecosystem is always brimming with offers, promotions and rewards by some organization or the other. Of all the offer and promotion categories, airdrops and giveaways enjoy pride of place because they are very intrinsically linked to the crypto space. They are nothing like traditional offers, but involve free distribution of assets, partly for enabling crypto wallet owners to earn free crypto and partly for personal promotion. However, the commonly held notion is that airdrops and giveaways are the same thing. Even members of the crypto community often harbour the same opinion. But, it is not exactly the case. Though there are several similarities between both, there are differences as well. Let us take a look at them.

What is an airdrop?

Airdrops are promotional tactics adopted usually by the issuers of a new cryptocurrency. They deliver some amount of the new asset directly in the digital crypto wallets of participating users. This is called airdrop. It is a good way for crypto investors and traders to get free crypto without actually buying into them. New crypto projects are keen to make their issue known to a wide number of crypto users. To do this, they often send the new issue to various crypto wallets as an initial offering. This functions both as a publicity and awareness campaign for their issue as well as an incentive for users to buy into the issue. It can be compared to the culture of handing out free samples to potential customers before the actual purchase takes place. If the potential customers like the free samples, they are most likely to purchase the product. Similarly, airdrops are meant to give potential holders a taste of the new coin. If they are satisfied with it, they can buy more of it and tell acquaintances to buy it.

Airdrops are primarily undertaken by blockchain-based companies which have issued a new coin and want to enhance its visibility and promote it in the market. The ultimate goal is to list it on exchanges as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) but before that crypto users must be made aware of the arrival of a new coin. This is where airdrops come into play. They help the issuer to stand out and thereby place the new coin in view of a large number of crypto wallet owners. Wallet owners must qualify for a respective airdrop in the sense that, he/she should maintain a specific wallet balance Therefore, airdrops can potentially be the source of earning for those whose wallets are airdropped with new coins. They can book periodic profits on airdropped coins and thus, create a steady source of income.

How can you get information about airdrops?

After you have understood what airdrops are, you might think where to get information and updates about the latest airdrops. There are some platforms which come up with constant updates and reviews of recent airdrops. You can visit websites like www.aidrops.io, www.airdropter.com, coinairdrops.com and airdropalert.com in order to check out information about latest airdrops and get all allied information about them. This website not only hosts information about the recent airdrops but also contains comprehensive information about Twitter handles, Telegram channels and other sources from where you can get additional knowledge of airdrops.

What is a giveaway?

Giveaways are random distributions of assets in crypto wallets, without the wallet owners having to do much in order to claim the assets. Giveaways don’t often require any task to be fulfilled and even if they do, they are routine in nature and not of a special nature, particular to the asset. Giveaways can be organized without much technical requirements. Winners are selected randomly and the process resembles that of a lottery.

How are airdrops and giveaways different?

Airdrops have a number of participants who register themselves for those airdrops. That is not the case with giveaways. Crypto giveaways are announced by organizations or celebrities in order to mark an occasion or to simply increase awareness about a particular crypto or crypto in general. The recipients of giveaways are chosen randomly in a process somewhat like a lottery. Moreover, bounty airdrops and exclusive airdrops are received only by people who either clear a predetermined cutoff or qualify in a certain parameter, e.g. they hold a particular coin or belong to a certain online community etc. Giveaways do not require any such precondition because their recipients are chosen randomly. In airdrops, the token values are also shared equally by all the wallet owners participating in the airdrop. But, in giveaways, the prize amount might again be randomly chosen. Lastly, airdrops are necessarily backed by an organization, usually a blockchain-based company. However, giveaways can be hosted solely by individuals as well.