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Indeed, airdrops play a crucial role in the non-fungible token ecosystem by fostering a community, driving engagement, increasing project visibility, and providing value to early adopters. But there is a catch. The recent crypto market research shows that over 88% of airdropped crypto tokens and non-fungible token coins lose value within just three months after the token generation event. In this article, we shall assess whether airdrop is a shortcut to NFT adoption, or just an expensive hype machine.
Most NFT Airdrops Lose Value Shortly After TGE
On September 18, DappRadar.com, an on-chain crypto market data aggregator and non-fungible token explorer that tracks non-fungible token collections from more than 10 blockchain networks, published an exclusive research report concerning crypto and non-fungible token projects-backed airdrops. In their research, the DappRadar research team has found that +88% of airdropped non-fungible token-backed coins have lost their value shortly after going live on the blockchain.
Airdrops remain one of Web3’s most powerful but risky growth tools. They spark attention, but only strong ecosystems can turn that into lasting communities.
We break it all down in our latest report 👇https://t.co/GxolTfLPzH
— DappRadar (@DappRadar) September 18, 2025
By description, an airdrop is a marketing strategy where a non-fungible token project distributes free new tokens or coins to active users, often as a reward for early engagement, holding specific tokens, or completing simple tasks. Even though airdrops can offer free crypto, NFT users should be cautious of scammers and hackers and research the legitimacy of any airdrop or opportunity before participating.
Many NFT projects use airdrops to build community and create buzz, rewarding early adopters and existing non-fungible token holders with free digital assets to foster long-term engagement and decentralization. By distributing tokens broadly, non-fungible token projects also increase the awareness of their products, drive adoption of their platform, and can even provide holders with voting rights, contributing to the network effect crucial for a crypto project’s success in a competitive market.
Airdrops come in different formats, including retroactive airdrops, which reward users who have interacted with a protocol in the past; incentive airdrops, which encourage ongoing behavior such as trading, staking, or referrals (e.g., Blur’s points system), and community airdrops, which reward non-fungible token holders, developers, or social community members. Airdrops have become one of the most effective marketing strategies in Web3.
Blur NFT Coin Fell +50% Shortly After Launch
The DappRadar NFT team has highlighted $Blur as one of the non-fungible token coins that reduced its value barely three months after launch. The BLUR token is the native cryptocurrency of the Blur platform, a high-performance NFT marketplace and market data aggregator designed for professional traders. BLUR tokens serve two primary functions: governance, allowing holders to vote on platform decisions, and incentives, rewarding users for trading activity, listing NFTs, and providing liquidity.
Take Blur as an example. Its airdrop in 2023 flipped the NFT market overnight, capturing 70%+ of Ethereum NFT trading volume and outpacing OpenSea by up to 5x in daily trading.
But here’s the catch: much of that surge came from a few high-frequency farmers, not long-term users. pic.twitter.com/UCBVQrwylf
— DappRadar (@DappRadar) September 18, 2025
Blur launched its Blur NFT coin in February 2023. Blur’s token launch was preceded by months of “seasonal” rewards, where traders accumulated points for activity such as listing NFTs, providing liquidity, and demonstrating platform loyalty. In just a few days, Blur NFT had captured more than 70% of Ethereum’s NFT trading volume, forcing its rival OpenSea NFT marketplace to slash its fees and rethink creator royalties.
Unfortunately, the Blur token, which initially debuted at around $1.20, quickly declined days later after claimants sold their holdings. This token has also drifted below $0.10 by 2025. By late 2023, Blur’s NFT market share had begun to decline as well, stabilizing in the 20–40% range after the initial surge. At the time, OpenSea dominated the NFT market in terms of unique active wallets, appealing more to casual collectors and creators.
Other NFT airdrops that followed a similar track were LooksRare and X2Y2. These NFT market platforms distributed tokens to OpenSea NFT traders in 2022. Both briefly captured significant volume, but much of it was wash trading. It didn’t take long before activity fell sharply because rewards dried up. Their tokens, once worth hundreds of millions, now trade at a fraction of their peak values. More recently, memecoin-style NFT airdrops, Memecoin ($MEME), which briefly energized collectors, have also failed to sustain NFT market hype.
Lesson Learnt
The key lesson from NFT airdrops is that even though they are highly effective at redirecting liquidity, they struggle to create sustainable communities. Traders will follow rewards, but collectors and creators seek trust, usability, and cultural relevance, factors that tokens alone cannot deliver. The challenge for NFT projects is no longer how to capture attention, but to understand which projects create hype and which ones create history.
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