Review of Uniswap Airdrop: Unprecedented Innovation
The Uniswap airdrop, when it retrospectively distributed governance token UNI, was considered an unprecedented innovation, according to a tweet by Hayden Adams. The protocol has been running for several years now and has garnered hundreds of thousands of users, achieving strong product-market fit.
At the time, the Uniswap team believed that no one would be able to replicate the airdrop. Hayden Adams pointed out that almost every project now conducts airdrops, with most of them having some level of manipulation.
He then discussed the advantages and disadvantages brought about by airdrops.
Advantages:
– Financially changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (Hayden Adams claimed to have heard many stories).
– Rewarding early adopters and fostering a user culture.
– Fairer and wider distribution of value.
– Simpler self-adoption, making the public willing to try new things.
– Good airdrops can achieve early liquidity and early price discovery.
Disadvantages:
– Airdrops becoming industrialized, with users expecting every project to conduct them.
– Project teams mistaking airdrop recipients for product-market fit.
– Harassing teams and demanding airdrops.
– Project teams taking advantage of potential airdrops, continuously disappointing users’ expectations.
How to execute a successful airdrop?
Hayden Adams suggested that project teams should clearly define their goals in order to design airdrop mechanisms. It is also important to understand that speculators will always exist, and anything that can be manipulated will be manipulated.
He also mentioned that in terms of influence, Uniswap’s airdrop was unprecedented. However, the first true airdrop was the one by OMG Network (OMG) to ETH holders in 2017.
Note: OmiseGo was renamed OMG Network in June 2020.
Although Hayden Adams spoke sternly, it seems that Uniswap was compelled to announce the airdrop issuance of governance token Uni and the initiation of liquidity mining within less than a month when SushiSwap copied its protocol code and launched liquidity mining in September 2020. This resolved the liquidity war, but Uni, with only governance voting functionality, has often been criticized.
(SushiSwap’s early liquidity migration may lead Uniswap to lose 80% of its liquidity)
Hayden Adams
UNI
Uniswap
Further reading
Which airdrops have earned the most in recent years? TIA, JTO, BONK have all created significant value.
Proposal approved! Uniswap will sell 10 million UNI tokens to sustain the foundation’s operations for two years.