This fall, I wrote about how airdrops have stopped working , going from community-strengthening rewards to farmable bribes that got dumped instantly. As I write, three December airdrops have affirmed that thesis: the token prices of both Magic Eden’s ME and Remilia’s CULT dropped roughly 30% over the ten days after they debuted. Movement Network’s MOVE token, meanwhile, spiked briefly before dumping back to its issuance price. But we have seen one shining exception to the trend. On November 29, Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange running on its own blockchain, decided to make me a liar. Their airdrop of 31% of their native token supply to users wasn’t just the largest ever , with a face value of $4.3 billion dollars. It also appears to have reached a community of real users who are committed to the ecosystem long-term: both the price of the HYPE token and the TVL locked in the DEX have skyrocketed since the airdrop. There are lots of reasons for this, starting with a great product with innovative features, and tokenomic design truly aligned at every turn towards benefitting users, rather than insiders. That was possible because Hyperliquid didn’t take huge outside capital from venture capitalists looking for short-term liquid gains. That enabled one of the purest launches we’ve seen in crypto since Bitcoin itself, from a team that clearly understands the biggest wins come when we’re all in it together. To continue reading this as well as other DeFi and Web3 news, visit us at thedefiant.io
