Airdrops Are They Worth It? $BRUSH
In May 2021, the PaintSwap team announced a series of airdrops for their new DEX on Fantom. As expected, users rushed to join the community, but the moderation team had to deal with a large influx of bot accounts and airdrop hunters. Rather than giving away tokens to everyone in the community, PaintSwap decided to reward users who were active on the platform. In total, 44,982,651 $BRUSH tokens were distributed through six different airdrops over the first few weeks/month.
The airdrops were spread out over several weeks, and each one had its own set of criteria for eligibility.
Airdrop #1 went to people pre-funding LPs on the platform before farming begun. 2% — 9,000,000
Airdrop #2 was a snapshot of those same LPs between 1–7 days after farming begun. 2% — 9,000,000
Airdrop #3 to everyone who has traded more than $10 of either $BRUSH, $FTM or $USDC on the platform. 1772 users that qualified. 1.33% 5,985,000
Airdrop #4 Trading competition for all pairs that were whitelisted (2 weeks long). 2.137%- 9,616,500
Airdrop #5 was another LP snapshot randomly within the 3 weeks (3 weeks long). 2% — 9,000,000
Airdrop #6 was another LP snapshot randomly within the 3 weeks (3 weeks long). 1.5% 6,750,000
Looking Back
Looking back at the airdrops almost two years later, we can see how they have affected the PaintSwap protocol. A Dune Analytics dashboard created by bravenoob21 shows that 3,602 wallets qualified for the airdrops, with some participating in multiple airdrops.
The amazing bravenoob21 put together a Dune Analaytics dashboard for us to investigate! https://dune.com/bravenoob21/paintswap-brush-airdrop
The majority of these wallets received between 1–1,000 $BRUSH tokens, with the second-highest bracket between 3,000–4,000 due to users participating in multiple airdrops.
However, there were also some whales that took a large slice of the pie, with five wallets alone receiving over 1,000,000 $BRUSH each.
The Big Question
Out of the 3,602 wallets that qualified for the airdrops, only 766 (21.4%) are still holding $BRUSH tokens. The rest have either sold their tokens, transferred them to another wallet, or added them as liquidity on multiple platforms.
Did It Work?
From a protocol point of view, the airdrops certainly got PaintSwap some initial activity and a user base interested in the platform. Since the initial spikes during airdrop distribution, the number of users holding some $BRUSH has steadily increased over the last year, as shown in the chart below. PaintSwap has evolved from a standard Uniswap DEX clone to a bespoke NFT and fNFT marketplace.
However, from a team perspective, dealing with on-boarding thousands of new users was a learning experience that took its toll. Overall, the airdrops were successful in getting the word out about the PaintSwap platform, but the team had to weigh the benefits of the initial spike in user activity against the costs of dealing with bot accounts and airdrop hunters.
What’s your thoughts on airdrops in 2023 as a distribution and on-boarding method to new protocols?
$BRUSH
In addition to being distributed through airdrops, the $BRUSH token has several use cases within the PaintSwap ecosystem. It is used to pay for some listings and creating collections on the NFT marketplace, as well as for creating contracts via the NFT factory. Additionally, it is required for minting on the community contract. Half of the marketplace fees go towards buying back and burning $BRUSH, with more utility to come in the future.
Furthermore, users can stake $BRUSH in the PaintSwap pool or add it as liquidity on SpookySwap and the BRUSH-FTM farm to earn more $BRUSH. Other BRUSH-FTM farms exist on Beethoven x, Spooky Swap & Equalizer Exchange. The main $BRUSH liquidity can be found on SpookySwap.
