Do a good job of airdrop expectation management: the correct posture of the project party's "big picture"

Author: IceFrog, Crypto Researcher

Foreword

Stock tycoon Jesse Livermore once said, "Money comes by sitting and waiting." Regardless of the profound meaning of this sentence in trading, at least in the blockchain airdrop track, this sentence is undoubtedly true. However, four years after Uniswap launched a large-scale airdrop, the airdrop track has already turned upside down. Money still comes by sitting and waiting, but you don't know whether it is pork trotter rice or Michelin set meal, or maybe it's just waiting for loneliness.

No one will be satisfied with the pork trotter rice airdrop, but they will not turn against each other. What is really unacceptable is "You said you are my sweetheart, but you did a rat warehouse behind my back; you said you are a rich and handsome man with a deep background, but you just want to trick me to go to Myanmar; your expectations are not fulfilled, and you still say I am a big bastard."

"You betrayed me and let me laugh it off", the lyrics shine into reality, and it is particularly profound in the matter of airdrop expectations, because the paradox is that every airdrop participant believes that this is a true reflection of their inner thoughts. The profound reason behind it is the expectation gap, and the source of the accident is the airdrop expectation management of the project party.

If you want to change the "ladder withdrawal" caused by this expectation gap and avoid the project from becoming a ghost town, then managing airdrop expectations with the correct posture of "big picture" is a compulsory course for all project parties in the next stage. Before that, it is necessary to clarify how airdrops have evolved and how the community views airdrops, and then manage the community airdrop expectations based on "giving up PUA fantasies and doing projects honestly". After all, the blockchain world has proved countless times that the community is the solid foundation for a project to have lasting vitality. Without community support, it may not die today, but it will definitely die tomorrow.

1. Evolution and current status of airdrops

1. Origin and essence

Contribution to create value or buy traffic thinking extension, position determines direction

Since Uniswap launched the first large-scale airdrop in the blockchain world in 2020 and achieved great success, airdrops have become one of the most effective strategies for launching projects in the crypto industry. Accompanied by huge wealth feasts, in less than four years, hair-pulling has become a highly specialized sub-industry.

At the same time, the hair-pulling party and the project party have gone from love and hate to the end of the dagger. The project party repeatedly staged PUA users in exchange for huge financing by continuously raising expectations; the users, with the determination to "bear humiliation", staged the drama of running away and withdrawing the ladder immediately after the airdrop ended.

The deterioration of this game starts from the source of airdrops.

· In the early airdrop era of the ICO boom: blockchain was still a wild land, and airdrops at that time did not require interaction, and you could get token airdrops with an address;

· Then when liquidity mining became popular, it was replaced by liquidity mining rewards, and the growth of TVL was accompanied by the maturity of mining, withdrawal and selling.

· The airdrop of Uniswap opened the era of airdrops in one fell swoop, and provided an excellent example for the promotion and launch of subsequent projects. So far, airdrops have officially become an important means for many projects to attract new members, raise funds, and go public on exchanges, and the party that focuses on airdrops has also emerged.

Under the same rules, different participants have completely different perspectives on the same thing, which is the beginning of things going to chaos. The same is true for blockchain airdrops.

· From the perspective of the project side, if it is from the business model, on the one hand, it is the idea of ​​buying traffic for promotion. If you use traffic, you will naturally make money, whether it is liquidity mining or project financing; on the other hand, it is to achieve decentralization from the governance structure to complete the complete construction of the project.

· From the user's perspective, it is contribution to create value. Since I have made a contribution, it is natural that you should give me feedback.

· The two have the same interests from a certain perspective, but the major difference is that the recognition of contributions and the power to judge value are not in the hands of users. Once abused, conflicts are inevitable; more importantly, the project side has no strong mandatory constraints on the corresponding responsibilities of power.

· This further leads to the fact that users must constantly cater to the value judgment standards of the project party through the clues of the project. The project party can have the power to change its judgment standards at any time for the purpose of different stages. With the rapid growth of the market value of blockchain, especially with the addition of huge amounts of capital, capital is mixed with complex interest distribution. The project party needs to steer the direction and balance the interests of all parties.

Things always move in the direction of least resistance.

· For the project, capital is the sponsor, and the exchange is the father behind the sponsor.

· Users are God at first, then partners, and then just numbers.

For project parties with unlimited power, it is naturally a fairly easy choice to sacrifice someone when necessary, especially after the rise of Lumao Studio.

· Some project parties are standing on the basis of the huge amount of data brought by Lumao Studio to obtain large amounts of financing.

· On the other hand, they are stepping up to establish witch detection methods, preparing to accurately snipe at the moment when the feast begins.

· There are quite a few projects that are both in power and in opposition. The fundamental reason behind this is that the project party has absolute control over the power of airdrops.

From the above picture, we can see that in the ecosystem of users, projects, capital, and exchanges, from airdrop expectations to project party financing expectations, capital party valuation expectations, and exchange traffic expectations. All expectations depend on user data interaction.

In specific practice, in order to meet regulatory requirements, in theory, more than 50% of the tokens will be distributed to the community, and most of them will use no more than 10% for airdrops. If we consider the proportion of the project party itself and the proportion left to the capital party, it is quite limited. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the phenomena of raising valuations by making data, doing insider trading, and shipping during the lock-up period.

In the face of interests, uncontrolled power is a sickle swung at users.

2. Development and evolution:

From tokens to points, traffic value and interest disputes, PUA and anti-PUA

The catering of users, the acquiescence of project parties, and the promotion of capital, the wool industry has become an important part of project construction.

The wealth effect brought by high valuations meets the demands of capital, but it also lays the foundation for the rise of the Mao Mao studio. The huge amount of robots brushing accounts, the project side has mixed feelings of love and hate. If the wealth is large enough, then only hatred will remain.

How to avoid brushing accounts to the greatest extent, while the number of users must grow, the Mao Mao party is evolving, and the project side is also evolving.

The most direct and effective way is to increase the cost of Mao Mao, but in order to retain Mao Mao people, they have to magnify the expected return, which creates an expectation gap and indirectly promotes the birth of highly valued VC coins. After all, projects that are capable of doing a points system all have luxurious investment backgrounds.

From the results, there is no doubt that the points system effectively avoids low-quality account-brushing behavior through the increase in time costs and various staged levels, but this also leads to the loss of retail investors and becomes a game between large investors and studios, which further leads to the fact that once the project is launched, the wool party and the project party will not take over each other.

Before the project TGE is launched, or even before the airdrop is launched, different project parties also offer different anti-witch methods, resulting in different results.

It is obvious from the above table that in an industry, if the water is too clear, there will be no fish. If you confuse the result with the purpose, you will often get no good results. The point system and anti-witch are means to filter out fake users, not the ultimate goal.

· It is not advisable to kill witches through the extreme test of human nature;

· It is even more undesirable to leave it alone;

· However, stealing by rat warehouse is a heinous crime.

· Even if the points system is used to avoid some low-quality account-brushing, the distribution of points, the transparency of the rules, and the endless behavior of encouraging quantity first and then discouraging users, while user trust is overdrawn, it is not surprising that the project data plummets.

The PUA methods of the project party are sophisticated, but as long as it is profitable, the anti-PUA of the Mao Mao party will be more fierce, from low-security accounts to boutique accounts, from script automation to studio team operations, to large-scale human sea tactics, and even script attacks on Github.

Although some people have said that airdrops are dead as early as 2023, there are still a large number of professional Mao Mao parties to this day. The fundamental reason is the rapid growth of the crypto world. Engaging in Mao Mao is still a very profitable business.

From the perspective of the project side, they cannot do without the Mao Mao Party. When the bear market comes, the Mao Mao Party is the only liquidity that can be relied on. After all, as the old saying goes, there is no winter that the Mao Mao Party cannot overcome.

3. Embarrassment and dilemma:

From traffic to retention, everyone wants to change their fate, but no one can keep their original intention.

For the project side, in the rapidly changing blockchain world, user attention is very limited, and competing for user attention has become a compulsory course for every project side.

The most effective is undoubtedly the wealth effect brought by airdrops, and the subsequent "retention" has become a major pain point for the project side. The ghost town of blockchain is both the cause and result of traffic.

· After the airdrop of most projects, the participants did not accept each other's orders, causing the price of the currency to plummet. Anti-VC coins once became the consensus of the market. The most critical reason for this is the overall downturn and cycle rotation of the market.

· From the high valuation in the bull market to the issuance of coins in the bear market, naturally no one will take them.

· Even if the bull market picks up, external liquidity will focus more on mainstream currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the newly listed VC coins can only be a fight between existing funds.

The loss of the wealth-creating effect is the biggest original sin of the crypto world. Everyone who comes to surf the crypto world undoubtedly has the heart to change his fate.

With the intervention of mainstream capital, the increasingly prosperous capital operation and the insufficient growth of loyal crypto users have formed the most core contradiction:

· With the support of huge capital, the project party regards the Mao party as electronic beggars, but has to rely on the support of the Mao party;

· The Mao party tirelessly studies the project rules, creates the false prosperity of the project in a professional and industrialized way, but despises the harsh witch rules of the project party.

The core of the contradiction seems to be the PUA-attributed points system or the witch system, or the robot's number brushing; but fundamentally it is still because the user's expectations for the value of the airdrop and the uncertainty of the points expectations continue to increase, and the project party is dissatisfied with the situation of a sharp drop in traffic after the airdrop is released. This is a confusing account, but it is not completely impossible to clarify.

Power is only responsible for the source of power.

As mentioned above, the project party has absolute power over the airdrop distribution and rules, but in the game state where power is unconstrained, the cost of doing evil is too low. What some project parties do not understand is that their current power is accumulated by countless users. Users have the least power in this ecological niche, but they are precisely the source of power.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand how users view airdrop expectations and why some projects can still do it and still have a large number of supporters after the airdrop.

2. How the community views the airdrop expectations

1. Benefits are important, but fairness and transparency are also important

For community users, the primary purpose of airdrops is to get expected or exceeded benefits. Studios use scripts to batch brush accounts or human sea tactics to implement the points plan. Project parties use technology to counter technology and try to improve the loopholes in the rules to avoid large-scale witch data. This is understandable and there is nothing wrong with it, such as Arbitrum.

Although the rules and anti-witch technology cannot be perfect, under relatively fair rules, most people are satisfied, which will also provide a strong foundation for the reputation of the project and subsequent activity.

If the rules themselves are unfair, whether it is the points system or token airdrops, they will be denounced and opposed by users, such as:

· There was the Zksync insider trading controversy.

· Or the Starknet rules favor developers.

· Even Taiko's refusal to publish rules.

· And the IO project's non-disclosure of points, PUA user behavior, etc.

The root cause of the user's anger and community condemnation is still unfairness, which is caused by the opaque system, and then large-scale user loss is justified.

2. Short-term traffic co-construction is necessary, and long-term value links are also needed

If the project itself is excellent enough, combined with a thriving ecosystem and excellent experience, the Mao Mao Party and the project party will become a good story of mutual complementation.

For example, even if Base does not issue tokens, it can still attract a large number of users through the money-making effect brought by the high-quality ecological project friend.tech; Arbitrum and Op have formed a broader positive flywheel through continuous token incentives for ecological projects.

As long as the project has long-term value, has continuous hematopoietic ability and strong operational capabilities, rather than simply relying on short-term airdrop expectations to cut leeks, then even if there are occasional witches that slip through the net, it will still stand in the market for a long time. Both the wool party and the real users will eventually be strong supporters of the ecosystem.

Three, how do project parties manage airdrop expectations?

1. The formation of expectation deviation: asymmetric expectations and unforeseen information

The formation of any expectation deviation comes from the asymmetry of expectations and the asymmetry of information. This is common in the cases of failed airdrop operations.

The psychological changes of failed project parties are generally divided into four stages:

· Stage 1: hint at the expectation of airdrops, attract customers to roll up GAS and deposits.

· Stage 2: The data is good, the financing is in hand, the valuation is stable, and it is ready to be listed on the exchange. At this time, the multiple accounts of the Mao Mao Party are a bit annoying, and they want to get rid of the donkey after it has done its job.

· Stage 3: It is found that the community expectations are already very high. At this time, a big move can easily trigger a community rebound, so they roll together and build a mouse warehouse.

· Stage 4: I know you want to smash the market, so I will smash it too. What lock-up period does not exist at all.

In fact, the above psychological changes can be found everywhere in the airdrop cases of users who are against the use of money. The most fundamental problem is:

· When you are needed, you are a user and God;

· When you are not needed, you are an electronic beggar and a cancer.

The root cause of the high expectations and the abandonment of the donkey after it has done its work is that the project party has no constraints at all. When you use ambiguous information to continuously raise the expectations of users, you cannot say that this is the greed of users; as mentioned in the preface, you say you are tall, rich and handsome, but you always want to trick people into going to Myanmar.

Information opacity and differences in expectations together constitute the cognitive inconsistency between project parties and the Mao Mao Party, which is also the most direct reason for the expectation deviation.

2. The core secret of expectation management: don't say too much, don't repeat, and be able to cash in

In actual project operations, many project parties deliberately describe the value of airdrops/points in a vague way, leaving the interpretation space to users, so as to continue to motivate users. This is actually a good method.

But it should be noted that ambiguity does not mean no bottom line, nor does it mean capriciousness.

The best and most tested expectation management on this earth is undoubtedly the Federal Reserve. Expectation management is nothing more than three important cores: don't say too much, don't repeat, and be able to cash in.

· Don't say it all: Corresponding to the project, users can be allowed to have a certain degree of interpretation space in the subsequent guidance, but the basic bottom line of the rules must be clear and unshakable; the guidance of users must be corrective and continuous, rather than letting the community ferment until it is out of control, such as Starknet.

· Don't repeat: Many project parties are capricious when formulating rules, and openly dilute the value of user airdrops. This is basically a bottom-line behavior, which is a huge harm to users, such as the recent Scroll. There are also some unnecessary actions, such as Blast, which started advertising at the critical moment of receiving the airdrop without informing the user. The founder's short video must be watched, and the embarrassment is close to the opening animation of Gree mobile phones. The current market value is almost plummeting.

· Able to cash out: This is an important manifestation of the project party's pattern. There are many small-scale project parties, and the specific manifestation is that they do not airdrop or airdrop low-value tokens or NFTs.

In fact, we infer from the results that the larger the project, the higher the market value. Especially when users say that this is a small-scale project, it is almost a declaration: Don't take over in the secondary market.

3. Some suggestions: balance interests, community priority, project-based

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, there are different expectations among project parties, users, capital, and exchanges. The essence behind expectations is interest demands. While doing a good job of expectation management, it also means doing a good job of balancing interests.

The current situation is that the probability of highly valued token projects breaking the issue price as soon as they go online is almost 99%. A few of them have been listed on the Binance exchange, leaving a certain amount of breathing space. In order to break the current vicious cycle and airdrop dilemma of VC coins, and put aside the market's bull-bear conversion itself, the project party must clearly realize that in addition to the rolls of the Mao Mao Party itself, the cryptocurrency market itself has entered a competition of survival of the fittest. In the case of insufficient liquidity, the extensive management method will not only not be recognized by the community, but may also be backfired.

For a project, in the current environment, airdrops are undoubtedly still an effective way to attract new users and promote them, but designing an airdrop plan on a fair and transparent basis is a prerequisite, otherwise it would rather not issue tokens; secondly, in terms of the understanding of airdrops, it is necessary to clearly realize that the cost of airdrops is marketing and promotion costs, as well as the cost of buying traffic, and it is a one-time incentive behavior, which cannot be taken for granted as an investment in users; as long as it is marketing and promotion, there will naturally be conversion rate issues, and how to convert them in the future requires the project party to continue to build and further convert them into sustainable revenue.

Attach importance to community building, and the project party should recognize that the value of a good community operation has been set as an example by the success of the MEME track. Projects must build a broader user base through communities, KOLs, etc. to achieve truly effective growth.

· Use technology to fight against robot account brushing, rather than pollute yourself;

· Communicate with the community with a more sincere attitude, rather than PUA;

· Win the respect of users with fairness and transparency, rather than being spurned by users with deception and small-mindedness.

Fourth, Conclusion

There are not many big hairs left for the Mao party, which is inevitable for the industry to move towards mainstream development;

Similarly, there is not much time left for the project party to PUA, which is also inevitable for the change of industry narrative.