Game On: The Hottest Upcoming Gaming Token Airdrops

Airdrop season is in full swing, with apps, protocols, and different tasks seizing upon indicators of an impending bear market to lastly drop their tokens—and doubtlessly reward tens of millions of crypto customers within the course of.

What precisely is an airdrop, although? With regards to crypto tokens, an airdrop is usually a means for a challenge to reward its early customers and contributors by giving them a share of a newly launched token, all whereas spreading the tokens far and large for decentralized governance.

With regards to blockchain networks and tokens primed particularly for gaming, there are some fairly compelling airdrops on the horizon within the months forward. Right here’s a have a look at what’s coming for players—there should be time to get entangled and rating some tokens forward.

Pixels

Pixels, at present the buzziest sport on Axie Infinity’s Ronin sidechain for Ethereum, wrapped up its “play-to-airdrop” marketing campaign on January 19. The highest 7,000 gamers on the leaderboard certified for tokens, following a test to filter out any bots that manipulated the airdrop, together with one other 1,000 random gamers who met a sure factors threshold.

One other 20,000 gamers from an earlier play-to-airdrop wave are additionally eligible. Barikowski mentioned in a January 17 livestream that the PIXEL token launch is “very shut” and that there won’t be one other play-to-airdrop season earlier than then. Nevertheless, Pixels is freely giving NFTs and Ronin tokens earlier than the official airdrop begins.

Portal

Portal is undoubtedly one of many buzziest airdrops on the horizon, although it has additionally been controversial. The multi-chain gaming token, designed to bridge the hole between Web3 video games throughout numerous blockchains, has incentivized crypto customers to earn credit score in the direction of the airdrop by creating, sharing, and interacting with Twitter content material—which they’ve completed en masse.

As obnoxious as that may be, there’s nonetheless a variety of hype round what Portal is constructing. A lot of the staff comes from the Overlord and Creepz NFT staff at SuperDuper, they’ve recruited a Rockstar Video games co-founder and different advisors, and have lined up allies like main expertise company WME and NFT market Magic Eden.

Portal mentioned the airdrop was coming in January following a latest presale interval and the launch of the newest model of its Crystal Sprint airdrop farming expertise. Nevertheless, the challenge mentioned close to the tip of the month that it was launching a dashboard forward of the upcoming airdrop. The dashboard is reside, however there’s clearer airdrop goal as of this writing.

Heroes of Mavia

Heroes of Mavia, a Conflict of Clans-like cellular sport from the Binance Labs-backed Skrice Studios, simply rolled out on iOS and Android forward of a deliberate airdrop. In line with the sport’s creators, the MAVIA token airdrop will happen on February 6 for the 100,000 eligible customers who signed up for it earlier than hitting the cap.

Saga Protocol

Saga is a new blockchain community designed primarily for gaming, so it is sensible that the best way to doubtlessly earn a share of the upcoming airdrop is by enjoying video games. In December, Saga launched a “play-to-airdrop” marketing campaign throughout a number of video games working on testnet, with the highest leaderboard finishers set to earn a share of SAGA tokens.

In actual fact, Saga CEO Rebecca Liao advised Decrypt’s GG that some gamers would possibly finally earn “double airdrops,” since video games may launch their very own tokens and award them to early customers. The Saga mainnet is ready to go reside in spring 2024, with extra competitions set to happen within the coming months.

Saga has additionally revealed that some customers on Polygon, Avalanche, Cosmos, and Celestia can even be eligible to assert tokens within the airdrop. Moreover, Saga is launching a “Three Kingdoms” play-to-airdrop marketing campaign throughout video games on Solana, Polygon, and Avalanche, together with heavy hitters like Parallel, Shrapnel, and Fuel Hero.

Nifty Island

Launched in open beta on January 17, Nifty Island is a brand new sandbox-style sport that mashes up the texture of Animal Crossing, Roblox, and Fortnite’s Inventive mode, letting you customise your individual island and play with different customers. And it gives a play-to-airdrop marketing campaign with many alternative methods to doubtlessly earn ISLAND tokens.

In line with a tweet thread, Nifty Island will award customers factors primarily based on components like how a lot they play, what number of gamers they refer into the sport, and which different NFT belongings they personal in related wallets. It is unclear when the token drop will occur, however persons are flooding in to get a possible share of the ISLAND launch forward.

Nyan Heroes

Solana hero shooter Nyan Heroes, which options cats piloting big mech fits, is ready to launch its early entry model in February and debut a play-to-airdrop marketing campaign alongside it. Particulars are nonetheless to return, however the Overwatch-like shooter—which is listed within the Epic Video games Retailer—will award NYN tokens to early gamers. Homeowners of Nyan Heroes NFTs will likely be eligible for even better token rewards.

Apeiron

Together with Pixels, here is one other sport working on Axie Infinity’s Ronin chain that is doing an airdrop marketing campaign. Apeiron is billed as a shiny mash-up of traditional god video games (like Populous) and card-battling “roguelite” experiences, delivering an expertise that is certain to require cautious technique.

In January, Apeiron revealed a play-to-airdrop marketing campaign that can reward gamers of the Epic Video games Retailer battle demo with factors in the direction of the longer term ANIMA token drop, together with incentives for finishing different actions or proudly owning sure NFTs. Click on right here for extra particulars.

WUFFI

The WAX blockchain has been selling the upcoming airdrop for a “gaming meme coin” known as WUFFI, albeit with the token title WUF, which can apparently begin on WAX after which broaden to Solana in some unspecified time in the future.

WUF took a snapshot of eligible holders on January 31 forward of an eventual first airdrop wave, however no timing has been confirmed for the precise drop. Quite a few WAX video games and apps have pledged to assist the incoming token.

Notcoin

This is a possible upcoming airdrop that has but to be 100% confirmed. Notcoin is a gaming challenge that runs on messaging app Telegram, and claims that it has racked up over 5 million customers in simply over every week. These customers have frantically mashed a button to collectively “mine” over 1 trillion Notcoin, as of this writing.

Properly, kind of. This is the factor: Notcoin is not an actual cryptocurrency but. However the TON Basis, which oversees the community that Notcoin is constructing on, says the staff is planning a token launch. That is a reasonably good signal that some kind of airdrop is within the works for early customers, although no official standards has been set as of this writing.

Accomplished drops

Xai

Xai is a “layer-3” gaming community constructed on Arbitrum, itself a layer-2 Ethereum scaling community, and it simply launched its first airdrop wave on January 9. The drop was initially deliberate for December 27, however then was delayed into early January.

Created in collaboration with Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs, the Xai community dropped its first XAI tokens to homeowners of sure NFT tasks, together with Sentry node operators that bought a Sentry Key. In the end, some $70 million value of tokens have been handed out on this preliminary wave, with the collective worth spiking as excessive as $151 million the next week as XAI buzz grew. More rewards are anticipated in a future “Season 2” airdrop. Eligible customers can declare their XAI now.

Mixmob

Solana gaming platform Mixmob launched an airdrop for its MXM token on February 1 following the rollout of Racer 1, a card-based cellular racing sport on iOS and Android. MixMob CEO Simon Vieira beforehand advised Decrypt that it could airdrop tokens to lively neighborhood members and gamers who make the most of the sport’s racing, referral, staking, and wagering options. MixBot NFTs homeowners can even be included.

Mixmob has additionally mentioned that it plans to supply an unique airdrop for Solana Saga telephone homeowners, together with unique tournaments and different perks for these customers.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

Editor’s word: This story was initially revealed on December 27, 2023 and was final up to date with new information on February 4.