What is Airdrop in Cryptocurrency?

– by Tanish Mittal

Have you ever received a message saying that ‘You have won 0.02BTC, claim your prize by logging and creating an account on some cryptoxyz.com’?

No, this isn’t exactly airdrop but this is what we can call a ‘dusting scam’. More on it later.

Airdrop in the crypto field is a marketing tactic that is done for a new crypto currency’s launch. It involves giving away coins and tokens to Crypto wallet holders in order to promote their new virtual currency. This is done to the people who are actively working in the Blockchain field, and all they ask in return is social media reposting to help increase the awareness of the newly launched currency.

Let’s learn about ‘Airdrop’ in detail

Basically if we think about this technique in a simple way, it’s just a marketing tactic in the field of Blockchain. When people start to know more about that particular coin, the coin’s popularity rises and it gets more people trading in it when it lists on any crypto exchange platform as an ‘Initial Coin Offering’ (ICO).

How and where are they promoted?

This marketing tactic is performed on the actively running Crypto Forums, and company’s own website too. Coins are sent out to those people only who are actively utilising their Crypto Wallet, and sometimes it requires having some minimum balance in the wallet. Or else they can repost about the coin on online social media platforms, or anything that helps the Currency gain popularity, to be eligible for the gift.

More about the ‘Dusting Scam’

This Airdrop technique is totally legitimate and is only done for promotional and marketing purposes, but these ‘dusting scammers’ send out messages to people like ‘You’ve won free BTC, log onto this site to claim it’. These scams are very popular and mostly target people who might not suspect it. This can lead to your wallet getting hacked, you logging onto some malicious site, or involuntarily get involved in some illegal activities, as they sometimes even send out micro amounts to people. You, as a Crypto user, should be very aware about all the transactions happening in your wallet.

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