Participants of the Arbitrum airdrop project received thousands of dollars in rewards. Review by Crypto Upvotes experts on how the sphere of earning tokens for activity in blockchain services is organized and what other projects can make an airdrop.

Offchain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum, organized an airdrop of tokens to encourage active users of this ecosystem. On March 23, token trading under the ticker ARB started on major cryptocurrency exchanges, and after a period of strong volatility at the time of listing, its price on trading floors stabilized at $1.2. Tens of thousands of addresses received between 3,000 and 10,000 tokens during this distribution. Thus, participants received significant amounts of incentives in dollar terms and caused a stir around other projects. Which in the future may make their own airdrops.

Airdrop is a new form of successful project launch ?

The idea of free distribution of coins to users is not new. The first airdrop, after which the term became popular, was invented by the developers of cryptocurrency Auroracoin back in 2014 at the stage of mass cryptocurrency market birth. According to their idea, every resident of Iceland was supposed to get coins. That project was quickly forgotten, but the concept itself became popular in the crypto industry and continued to evolve.

Now, airdrops serve as an effective method for blockchain services to attract an audience. It is also likely to increase the loyalty of users who receive rewards in the form of project tokens. Some ecosystem decentralized projects, in which investors see potential, conduct multimillion rounds of funding with the participation of famous funds like Sequoia or Andreessen Horowitz.

What is Project Arbitrum. And why it’s the most expected airdrops of this year

A few years ago, crypto companies chose different forms of ICO (initial coin offering) to raise capital and liquidity. Now there is a risk that tokens will be classified as unregistered securities in the U.S. or Europe when raising funds this way. The free distribution of tokens helps create a market for crypto projects. At the same time, most of their supply stays with developers and investors. At the same time, it creates a financial base for the former and a source of profit for the latter.

Developers of blockchain services often do not announce a token when launching their project. But the experience of their competitors helps community members determine which projects will sooner or later decide to release their own crypto-asset. And which types of activities will be eligible for rewards.

This was the case with Offchain Labs: an infrastructure has already been built around Arbitrum – decentralized exchanges, NFT marketplaces, games, wallets, social networks and other services. All of them are at an early stage of development and need active users and testing. It is for activity in such projects that tokens are eventually distributed.

The company remained silent about its airdrop until recently. But the successful experience of large projects such as Aptos, Blur or Optimism ( the main competitor of Arbitrum) made it clear that participation in projects on the Arbitrum blockchain. Most likely, in the end, will not remain without encouragement from developers.

From which projects to expect launch of new Airdrops

The first obvious candidate is zkSync, an Ethereum scaling solution with a different technical approach than what Arbitrum or Optimism offer. In November 2022, zkSync developer (Matter Labs) led several investment rounds totaling $258 million. And LightSpeed, Andreessen Horowitz as well as major venture capital crypto funds – Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly took part in them.

The zkSync development team includes Anthony Rose, who led engineering teams at SpaceX, creating software for Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. And Steve Newcomb, who founded Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft and later became part of the search engine Bing.

In one week before the launch of token from Arbitrum, users transferred $8 million in assets to projects in the zkSync ecosystem. According to DefiLlama, the amount of funds (total value locked) locked in the pool of the decentralized exchange ZigZag. Which runs on the zkSync platform, rose from $1.5 million to more than $13 million in just one day. In a comment for Coindesk, Martin Lee, head of analytics platform Nansen, says that it was the distribution of Arbitrum tokens that triggered the increased activity of “airdrop hunters.” They have attracted both new entrants and those who have participated in airdrops from other projects.

Other potential candidates for future airdrops include several other projects:

StarkWare – Ethereum scaling solution, similar to zkSync. The developer is the Israeli company StarkWare Industries, with an investment of over $150 million and an estimate of $8 billion.

Scroll – a similar Ethereum scaling solution. The project has attracted funding of $80 million with an estimate of $1.8 billion.

Fuel Network – an Ethereum scaling solution similar to Optimism or Arbitrum. The project’s developer, Fuel Labs, raised $80 million in funding in September 2022.

Aleo – DeFi-protocol with a focus on privacy. The developers of Aleo Systems raised $200 million from SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, Samsung Ventures and other funds.

LayerZero – a protocol for exchanging data between blockchains from different ecosystems. The company behind the development, LayerZero Labs, has raised more than $173 million, with investors including PayPal Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

Other major projects without their own token include Sui, Celestia, Sei, Linera and others.

Terms of participation in airdrop from similar projects

As a rule, the developers of such projects do not name any criteria or conditions, fulfilling which it will be possible to get tokens in the future. Moreover, none of them guarantee the availability of airdrop for early users or the launch of a token. Activity sets are formed in the community based on the experience of predecessor projects. And when an airdrop is announced, the project team decides for itself each time who can claim their tokens and for what.

Some projects have even given away tokens for a single interaction with the ecosystem. And in the case of the Blur Marketplace, for example, a full-fledged multilevel airdrop strategy with a gamified approach was developed.

Risks from participation and scammers

Anonymity when using cryptoservices opens the door to manipulation. According to a joint study by journalist Colin Wu and the blog x-explore, about 150,000 addresses and at least 4,000 groups were identified in the Arbitrum airdrop.
Which are engaged in activity generation, which accounted for more than 253 million ARB tokens. And that’s about 22% of the entire airdrop.

There is growing evidence on the web that organized groups typically in countries such as Vietnam or Bangladesh – are scamming activity in blockchain projects. They use multiple accounts and wallets, working in offices on a schedule and getting paid. Our Crypto Upvotes experts managed to find several international groups in Telegram and Discord messengers. In these groups administrators offer services of “outsourcing” activity. Prices for the services range from $10 to $200 per account, depending on the project and activity set.

The growing popularity of cryptocurrency airdrop is being actively exploited by scammers. Interacting with blockchain projects implies a certain level of technical expertise. Therefore, inexperienced users often become victims of scammers. Tens of thousands of phishing pages appear on web that imitate sites of famous projects.

Sometimes these sites are designed with attention to detail and have high-quality design and convincing scenarios of interaction with the victim. It helps to avoid risks by interacting only with the official resources of the services. Where they also post links to ecosystem projects in which it is possible to participate, claiming a future airdrop.

The decision to stop working with NFT on social networks was made by Meta. This was done in order to focus on other ways to support content creators and their audiences

Meta has decided to stop supporting NFT in its social networks Facebook and Instagram. This was announced by Stefan Kasriel, the head of commercial and financial technologies department of Meta.

NFT support was added to the social network Meta 6 months ago. At the end of August 2022, company announced the introduction of digital tokens in Facebook and Instagram. And since then, users have been able to upload tokens to both social networks. It was necessary to connect a cryptocurrency wallet to an account on either one. Meta used Polygon blockchain to integrate NFT.

According to Kasriel, the decision to stop supporting NFT was made to focus on other technologies. Which would allow content creators to monetize their content and communicate with their audiences.

The company’s priorities are now to create and implement payment tools on its platform, messenger and short video service Reels. According to Kasriel, Meta will also continue to develop its payment service, Meta Pay.

Interest in NFT from other major world companies grows

Our experts point out that at the same time, large global companies continue to register trademarks related to NFT. Auto giant Nissan filed four trademark applications March 7 for the Infiniti, Nismo and Nissan brands, according to Mike Condudis, a licensed attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Nissan’s new trademarks will be related to virtual apparel, automobiles and other NFTs. In addition, the document mentions the creation of a platform for issuing and trading digital tokens. As well as marketing services in the metaverse and the creation of specialized software for working with NFT.

You will only be able to buy NFTs through your Amazon account with a bank card. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

The Amazon NFT Marketplace will launch on April 24, according to TheBigWhale. At first, a service called Amazon Digital Marketplace will be open only to U.S. users. But in future, customers from other countries, including Europe, will have access to it.

At launch, the site will feature 15 NFT collections. It will only be possible to buy NFTs through an Amazon account with a bank card. This method of payment was chosen to make it convenient for customers to use the service in the traditional way. At the same time not tying cryptocurrencies like Metamask to it.

To host a marketplace, Amazon chose a private blockchain platform that is not compatible with Ethereum. Therefore, developers who want their NFTs to be available on the new platform will have to use blockchain bridges (tools to transfer tokens between different networks).

Our experts note that Amazon is preparing to launch its own NFT-platform, it was reported in early January. At the time, it was known that US online retailer was considering launching blockchain games. Participants in such games will be able to receive digital tokens, and it plans to hold at least one NFT airdrop.

NFT collection from Warner Bros. Discover was sold on the first day of trading for more than half a million dollars. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

The NFT collection, collectively titled Game of Thrones: Build Your Realm, was based on the Game of Thrones series. It was sold out on the Nifty Marketplace within the first seven hours of the start of trading. The tokens, presented by media giant Warner Bros. Discover, went on sale the evening of Jan. 10 for $150 each.

Each NFT is a “box” with an avatar of a character from the series. And which can be used in virtual world created based on the work. Also, the NFT includes additional attributes for “boosting” heroes. After purchase, the “box” can be opened or left unopened to save, trade or sell it intact.

During presale, 3.45k NFTs became available with a limit of one token per Nifty account. Then another 1,500 NFTs went on public sale a few hours later, with a limit of two additional items per account. Fifty NFT were retained by project authors for further events, free giveaways, and other promotional purposes.

The total amount of sales of NFT from this collection from the beginning of trading was $564 thousand according to the analytical platform CryptoSlam. Only two tokens were resold more expensive than the original price: for $200 and for $176. The current minimum token price (floor price) is 0.061 ETH.

Christie’s sold only 87 NFT in 2022 for a total of $5.9 million. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

NFT sales at Christie’s are down 96% this year. The auction house sold more than 100 NFTs worth more than $150 million in 2021 and only 87 items worth $5.9 million in 2022.

In 2021, the most expensive lots of Christie’s were the works of American artist Michael Winkelman, known under the nickname Beeple. NFT-painting “Every Day: the first 5 thousand days” was sold in March for $ 69.4 million. And an animated 3d-image of an astronaut called HUMAN ONE left the auction in October of the same year for $ 28.8 million.

The NFT sculpture by Turkish-born media artist and filmmaker Refik Anadol was the most expensive lot of 2022. Living Architecture: Casa Batlló, which sold in May for $1.38 million.

Despite the decline in digital art sales. Christie’s continued to be active in web3 and NFT in 2022. The company created a venture capital fund, which on July 18 made its first investment in the startup LayerZero. This campaign specializes in blockchain interoperability.

Our experts also note that in September Christie’s launched its own NFT trading platform called Christie’s 3.0. The platform is based on the Ethereum network. Also now all payments are accepted in cryptocurrency and they include post-sale transactions (payment of commission and taxes).

For the first time in 2022, organizers of awards have added a category “Best Performance in Metaverse”. Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Twenty One Pilots are also nominated. NFT becomes part of music.

Eminem and Snoop Dogg will perform the track “From The D 2 The LBC” at the MTV Music Awards. It was created in collaboration with the NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).

The music video for “From the D 2 the LBC” was released along with a single. Directed by James Larez, the video alternates between footage of the rappers and animation in which they are presented as NFT avatars.

Our experts found out on the day of the single’s release, Eminem and Snoop Dogg performed the song at ApeFest. Which was held in New York City for  holders from the BAYC collection.

Solana released a Web 3.0 phone named “Saga” to appeal to a growing number of mobile phone users accessing digital assets.

Solana Labs has unveiled the “Saga” smartphone based on the Android operating system. “Saga” is a customized version of OSOM smartphone with built-in cryptocurrency wallet features. It will come pre-installed with Solana Mobile Stack. SMS a toolkit that allows you to create decentralized applications for mobile phones.

And so we found out that this smartphone will allow you to store digital assets and NFTs, sign transactions, and pay for purchases through Solana Pay. But it won’t just be a mobile phone. This device will support Solana-based apps and will have its own dapp Store. Solana Labs has said it intends to develop Saga ecosystem with partners like NFT marketplace Magic Eden, DeFi-platform Orca and wallet Phantom.

Also according to Solana website, this device features a 6.67-inch OLED display, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space. The smartphone is based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.

Also SMS toolkit supports the Seed Vault secure storage protocol for private keys. This latter puts them in a special enclave, separated from the wallet, applications and operating system. Solana Labs explained that SMS provides developers with a set of libraries and APIs that allow them to create decentralized mobile applications for Android devices. Solana Mobile Stack is already available for download on GitHub.

Want to buy this smartphone now? It is possible and our Crypto-Upvotes team found out how to do it.

“Saga” is expected to go on sale in early 2023 at a price of $1,000. Our experts found out that it is already possible to place a pre-order for 100 USDC – this amount will be deducted from the full price of smartphone, it is also already known will first be released in USA, Canada, EU and UK markets. So with an estimated price of $1,000. Saga mobile phone will compete with flagship models from Apple, Samsung and other mobile phone companies. With a strong ecosystem of software developers who can develop alternative Web 3.0 applications.

Cristiano Ronaldo will launch the first NFT collection in partnership with Binance by end of 2022

Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo will release several NFT collections. Sportsman entered into a multiyear partnership with Binance exchange, according to a Binance blog. So a goal of this partnership would be to create digital collectibles and attract soccer fans to Web3 ecosystem. “Nothing is more important to me than the fans, so the idea of bringing unprecedented experiences and access through this platform is something that I wanted to be a part of” – says Ronaldo. “We are thrilled to provide his fans with exclusive engagement opportunities to connect with Ronaldo” – said Binance CEO “CZ”.

So the first collection, set to launch at the end of this year. Will feature NFTs with an original design developed by Binance in collaboration with Ronaldo. According to an exchange blog, through a series of NFT collections, Ronaldo will provide a unique experience for soccer fans from many countries. Binance does not disclose details about this partnership, we do not know pricing or other options for this NFT collection at this time. Cristiano Ronaldo already has experience with crypto projects. In 2019, he played for Italian Juventus Football Club, which launched token JUV, which gave fans the right to vote in a number of decisions.

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