Lazy Nigerian Youth and the Web3 Airdrop Farm

If you’ve been spending time on the internet lately, with a strong emphasis on Twitter, then you must have seen a few people talking about farming $BLOCK or $PARAM or $BUBBLE.

They’re everywhere, in everyone’s faces. Everyone wants to cash out from this Web3 lottery that is trending at the moment.

How on earth did we get here? 

Intro to Web3

Web3 is a newer version of the internet that was built on blockchain technology as a foundation. The same technology served as the foundation of bitcoin and ethereum. 

It is decentralized and allows people to do many things that the normal internet would not allow. And it also has everything to do with this airdrop pandemic, as we will be explaining below.

The Dawn of Airdrops

Photo by Alesia Kozik on pexels

As we mentioned before, Web3 is another version of the internet, and there are thousands of things that are possible on the internet. However, Web3 has unique features that only it can access, which include blockchain and smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing programs that automate the actions required in an agreement or contract.

Just so we can bypass the lecture, smart contracts allow the development of tokens based on blockchain technology and a base token like bitcoin and ethereum. Thanks to the existence of smart contracts, it is possible for anyone to create a token using blockchain technology. These tokens are similar to the base tokens and were created for many reasons. 

But keep in mind that they are also stores of value. Meaning, you can exchange money for them and hold until they increase in value to make a profit. 

Tokens are valuable assets, or at least, they can grow in value. So when people create these tokens, they find ways to raise their value. A very efficient way to do this is to market the tokens to people to drive trust and demand. 

The more people trust a token, the more they believe it is worth more than it actually should be. And the higher the demand for a token, the more traders have the audacity to increase prices more than they should. 

Companies and programmers have found that the easiest and most efficient way to drive trust and demand for a token is to give little bits of it to people for free and promise them that what they’re holding is valuable, or at least that it is going to be valuable in the future. 

It is like somebody opening a shawarma grill and walking down the street to give away free shawarma. In exchange, many people know there’s a nice shawarma grill down the street. The only difference is that he doesn’t have to convince anyone that his shawarma is good.

You only have to bite it. 

This easy and efficient way of giving people free tokens is called an airdrop. 

Airdrops are also used to draw people to other projects like mobile apps, games, and exchange platforms. Companies and developers reward early users of their platforms by giving them tokens that later grow in value. 

The Nigerian Airdrop Pandemic

One thing you should know about the creators of these airdrop projects is that they target countries that lack laws to regulate crypto and also low-income communities. 

While crypto might be outlawed in Nigeria, you'll probably never find a low-income community as large as Nigeria's anywhere on the planet. Depending on how you view it, airdrops are basically easy money. 

No prior investments, no required skill, knowledge, or experience, no interviews, or tedious registration processes. Just drop an email and a wallet address, and you're ready to go. Easy money. 

But realistically speaking, unless someone is trying to be generous or giving in the name of a higher power, there's no such thing as free money. There's always a catch. 

We have mentioned earlier that these airdrops are usually made as a marketing strategy or as a reward system for early adopters of a product. Which means there is something the developers stand to gain from Nigerians. It could be their emails for email marketing, social media account details, or overall engagement on their platforms, which they disguise as tasks, games, or events. 

In a country where the unemployment rate is on the rise and the inflation rate is going over 30%, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to get free money in US dollars? 

It’s a heaven-sent opportunity for people who have smartphones but don’t know where the next meal or paycheck is coming from.

If only it were that easy. 

Pros and cons of airdrops 

Airdrops aren't magical money makers, and they’re not easy to get.

Okay. Hold on. Let’s explain. 

Airdrops expand the options to make money, especially for young Nigerians, who have very slim chances of getting employed and making a good income. It is something to look forward to when there seems to be no hope. And to make things better, you receive money as crypto tokens, which you can then convert to USDT, which is essentially US dollars. 

That’s right. You earn in dollars. 

With our current exchange rate, that’s a ton of money. 

Also, because you get paid in crypto tokens, you get to have a foot in the crypto market without having any prior investment. You can trade, hold, or look for something else to invest in with your tokens. And the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. 

However, just like everything else that has few barriers to entry, getting rewarded is very difficult. 

Many people farm airdrops at once, so it is difficult to get the rewards. Not only that, but there’s a chance you might receive the tokens, and they won’t be of any value. If too many people have massive amounts of the same token, chances are it won’t be evaluated so highly because of the lack of scarcity. 

There’s also the security risk that comes with farming airdrops. Some of the projects are scams. Some are just bait to get your private key so they can empty your wallet. Some just want your email so they can send you phishing links for other purposes. 

In some other cases, some developers just want the free engagement you bring to their apps and websites so that they can make money off you. And in some grander schemes, the founder or developers could be making these airdrops so that their token can gain value just so that they can sell the majority of it, cash in millions, and kill the market value. 

TechLead is a famous example of this scenario. 

Besides the risks, farming airdrops is not as simple as people say it is. From gathering referrals to staying active on Discord channels and making social media posts, farming airdrops could even be more difficult than a regular 9-5. 

There's also the problem of not having a stable income once you focus on farming airdrops. Staying online and up-to-date is a good way to increase your chances of winning the airdrop lottery, but this takes away time that could be used to do other things. And there's no guarantee that you'll score some tokens every single month. This might lead to you being seasonally wealthy. Sometimes, you could have a ton of money. Other times, you could be dead broke. 

This is one of the most difficult things to deal with when farming airdrops full-time. The fact that other people around you could be making something out of it while you’re not is enough reason to have your mental health in the gutter. Some Discord channels have mental health rooms to allow people to talk about worries such as this. 

To make matters worse, leaving the airdrop farm is mentally difficult. The idea that someone out in the world made $41k from a single airdrop is enough FOMO to go around the entire planet. Everyone wants to be the next to make it big. They don’t need $41,000. 2K is enough. 

How do I win airdrops in Nigeria?

First, make sure you bypass some of the most fundamental problems of being Nigerian. Make sure you have strong batteries and alternative power sources so you can always stay online. And make sure you have a speedy and reliable internet connection. A 4G or 5G router might make a large difference.

Also, do research. Make sure you’re getting information on hot projects that have not become mainstream yet. That way, you could be rewarded as an early adapter, or even better. Some good platforms to start your research are Reddit and Discord.  

And lastly, make sure you have a soft bed to fall back on on the days you aren’t winning. It will do a lot for you mentally. 

Conclusion

The airdrop farm is one of those things that disguises itself as easy money, but it is not as easy as people think. To get rewarded, you have to stay focused on the grind while having the most up-to-date information on the market.

In other words, you’re not lazy about farming airdrops.

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