Article: How to Pick an Airdrop Vol. Uno -- The State of the Game + Few Tips (w/lead up story)

The crypto game is contagious.  I mean, it's easy to get excited about cryptocurrencies and want to pull anyone in that's willing to listen...Let's fast forward to one of my boys.  See, most of the people I'm typically around don't really care about cryptocurrencies or blockchain, so when I make a suggestion to them about it, the ones that DO want to listen don't want to get into the weeds.  Well let's just say this guy was willing to get into the weeds, or should I say the grassroots culture.

So one of things I told him is that, in this game (like anything else), you get out of it what you put into it.  If you don't have a bankroll to invest, the best advice I could give you is to get involved on an iconic crypto forum such as Bitcointalk (BCT), find a project you like, support it, and get into their bounty programs.  I gave him direct links to two specific sections of BCT and said something along the lines of, "search here, anything you find bounce off me and I'll give you an opinion if you care".

So not too long after I pretty much indoctrinate this guy with a crypto mindset, he's throwing EVERY crypto at me lol.  I mean one of the coins was a coin that openly stated that it was an MLM coin...another was a POS coin that had 100%+ stake but the fees were so insane it was pointless to own outside of staking (hint hint, lol).

A week or so goes by and after the barrage of random cryptocoins, out of nowhere, this guy becomes the Airdrop Hunter.  I can honestly say the first (and really the only) airdrop I've come across on BCT was Deep Onion.   YEAH YEAH YEAH Deep Onion bust my airdrop cherry and I'm so grateful.  Have you ever been lucky enough, not to know ANY better about something, but get introduced to the good version of something before the bad?  Remember, we're talking comparatively now, so if you were to get introduced to the bad version first, it may not seem so bad...

^^That's what a typical convo with the Airdrop Hunter looks like.  Now I'm not saying he's the best at finding airdrops, but to someone that pretty much had only really found the Deep Onion airdrop, this was AIRDROP CITY to me.  Long story short, I got sucked in, and in this short period of time I've learned a decent amount about the airdrop subculture.  I hope to get more into the subculture in future volumes, but at the risk of this article getting out of control in length I'm gonna cut that short here for now.

Let me add on what provoked me to step back and really analyze the airdrop game though because I believe this is important:

^lol@the random promoted tweet...Sooooo, THOSE highlighted comments (I originally viewed on the EtherDelta exchange) is when I realized how ridiculous the airdrop game had become.  Do we really need three Litecoins that all probably do absolutely nothing different, and don't really improve any on the original Litecoin??? 

 See the airdrop culture, if we're JUST focusing on airdrops, at times it can be a culture that can be largely dominated by an act before you think herd mentality.  It's not about "is this is a good idea", it's a "get in, and ask questions later" mindset.  The bottom line is that people see free money, so they probably figure why do I need to evaluate this, there's no risk involved for me.  Well, MAYBE you don't need to evaluate, but when the ICO is done, and the coin pumps (even possibly by market manipulation in some scenarios), some investor that doesn't know any better and is FOMO'ing out hops on and becomes a crash dummy down the line.  I know in this cryptoworld, most of the time people don't seem to show sympathy for these crash dummies, but if you think about regulations, these are EXACTLY the things the SEC/PBoC and other similar governing bodies are all trying to protect us from. 

Often times its all just one big money grab to me.  The people that have foresight and can see this will benefit, those that don't will end up wasting a good amount of time on things that won't become fruitful at all.  As aforementioned, you have the crash dummies that miss the airdrop, but buy shortly after thinking they're getting in something at the ground floor that in many cases will never takeoff, often times money will be lost by these people.

So on that note, I'mma end Vol 1. with just a few things I personally pay attention to now when evaluating airdrops.  I'll use Deep Onion as the baseline because its one of the most legit, grassroots, organic, airdrops I've seen thus far.   These tips are in NO specific order, and this is not the exhaustive list:

• Check whether the coin seems to be backed by a team, or one person.  When I say this, this is BEFORE outsourcing work (bounties) to community members.  It's easy to fork a coin and have a QT wallet up and running for it so don't necessarily take that as a lot of work.  I've witnessed MANAGING airdrops alone literally OVERWHELM and DROWN the developer of a coin.  If a lightweight, systematic, distribution process isn't in place, bad airdrop management can kill a project before it ever gets going.  If you think about this from task management, and productivity perspective, how would a person/team progress a coin if they succumb to the load of just distributing it.
  • Onion Outlook:  DO's team has several members before outsourcing bounties. Onion has a great systematic airdrop distribution system in place.  Generally speaking, there aren't any hiccups when it comes to receiving the airdrops here.  You know exactly when to expect them, and they come like clockwork.  You have a very good idea of what you can expect to receive going forward even 20+ weeks from now
• Check whether the airdrop has strict yet reasonable rules.  If you want to be apart of an airdrop that ISN'T just a short term money grab, the airdrop is going to need some rules to separate the real from the fake supporters.  The quality of the community that will remain with the cryptocurrency thereafter will LARGELY be shaped by the rules of the airdrop so pay special attention to them.  It's hard to take a project serious that allows newbies considering how easy it is to spam new accounts.  Projects that don't require you to do anything but sign up, but will distribute the large majority of coins via AIRDROP will naturally have weaker communities
  • Onion Outlook:  DO has strict enough rules that don't allow just anyone to join.  There are less than 300 airdrop members in the WORLD currently (time of article).  That said, the rules are more than reasonable, especially considering the growth and upside of the project.  Newbies are not allowed, and you will have to get involved on BCT (via posts) in a manner that Deep Onion is willing to acknowledge.  Those in it for the money grab are immediately disqualified as soon as they show their hand based on a hard coded 90% wallet rule enforced by the team.  Deep Onion also has a team that specifically processes airdrop applicants, and the team has already killed off numerous cheat accounts (such as multiple accounts).
• Check to see if the coin actually explains its purpose and the problem that it is supposed to solve.  You would think it would be a no brainer that every airdrop does this, but far too many times I've noticed that putting out this kind of information takes a backseat to the airdrop.  I've seen NUMEROUS airdrops that are basically like "hey, don't worry about how this coin works or what it will do, just take these free coins, we'll actually think of something the coin can do later." lol.  While that's cool from a free perspective, it's really not a healthy way to carry it for a coin with aspirations of long term growth.  It also kind of shows the type of community that's behind the coin IMO, because when the community is willing to grab the freebies and state "this is a great project" without knowing really ANYTHING about it, that's FAKE LOVE to me.  
  • Onion Outlook:  From the beginning, Deep Onion has made it clear that their purpose is to become a juggernaut in the privacy coin game.  They have an aggressive goal of being the leading privacy coin, and their latest privacy implementation, DeepVault, shows that they continue to make a concerted effort to add increased security and privacy to their blockchain/cryptocurrency.
•  Check to see if the coin's roadmap has any substance.  One of the problems in cryptoworld is that trademark/copyright infringement is out of control at some levels.  All a person really has to do is a spin up (fork) a coin and package it in a way that on the surface it seems cool enough to get into it.  It's also very easy to spin up a super vague roadmap that includes things such as "release wallets", "add exchanges", etc.  While these are good things and necessary, virtually EVERY crypto needs to do this, so it's important to look for substance in a roadmap that's unique to just that coin.  It also helps if the crypto even has a roadmap to begin with, smh.  Very vague roadmap with very generic tasks along the roadmap, and/or NO roadmap are all red flags that the operation has been rushed, and hasn't likely been thought out.  
  • Onion Outlook: DO has a roadmap that stretches to Q3 of 2018 with detailed descriptions for each quarter so Onion hodlers know what to expect.  The roadmap does not seem overly vague or overly generic at all.  In comparison to some of the airdrops I've seen recently, the avg description for one quarter on DO's roadmap has been >= the whole roadmap for the large majority of airdrops I've come across.  I'm yet to see an airdrop that has more roadmap content than DO (I'm not saying it isn't possible, this has just been my experience across what I believe is def 10+ airdrops I've seen on BCT in the past 2 weeks).

We'll stop vol. uno there...Check me out for volume two, coming any random day hopefully next week.

Join the Deep Onion airdrop!  Please be sure to read the rules first, be sure to sign up to DO forum too.  If not currently eligible for the airdrop, work your way up the ranks and apply later.  Otherwise, you can come to DO forum
and get free onions for participating in the community, only thing we ask, is that you bring a positive attitude of support to the community. Not everyone has to bring technical expertise to the community. Bring whatever skills you possess to the community (even if it’s just showing consistent love and support) and get involved. Be a positive part of this movement and Deep Onion will impact your life in ways you never imagined! Come grow your garden with us!

Disclaimer: Some of the best investment advice I can ever give a person is to never invest solely based on the opinions or advice of one person, it’s just not logical. As always please do your own due diligence in anything you invest in.