#32 Creator Tokens
#32 Creator Tokens
How content creators are using airdrops to distribute new tokens and build community.
Our Airdrop is Not a Dick Pic
Don’t worry, we aren’t some teenage boy named Zach standing behind you at Starbucks air-dropping you unsolicited photos on your iPhone (our interns aren’t allowed to take their phones to get the coffee). We also, would never airdrop a NFT to your Opensea wallet that is a cartoon picture of a dick (NSFW, probably safe for remote work) like some anon did to our friend @litquidity.
Airdrops in Cryptocurrency became popular in 2017 during the ICO boom. New projects would send their newly created ERC-20 tokens out to known entities (users’ wallets) on the Ethereum network. The hopes was to spread awareness of the token before it was set to launch on a centralized exchange. In their short history airdrops have been used to support great projects, but also used as scams to trick investors into depositing funds before the token creator sells everything and then disappears.
Michael J. Casey, Chair of CoinDesk's advisory board and an advisor at MIT's blockchain research initiative argues a new token cannot survive without some form of airdrop,
A currency is nothing if it is not widely used. And that can't be achieved unless people make some cost-incurring effort to encourage widespread usage
Of course, we live in a world that’s not always rainbows and roses. Pierre Rochard, the founder of Bitcoin Advisory, cautions that crypto airdrops can be pump-and-dump schemes,
Watch out for give away scams like this: 1. Instantly pre-mine tokens for yourself and your friends 2. Trade the pre-mined tokens with each other to pump price 3. Bait retail investors with a 'give away' of the tokens 4. Retail evangelizes the token for you, dump.
You can hunt for recent airdrops using, etherscan, a popular tool for looking at Ethereum’s onchain data.
Community Building
In the modern era of DeFi and NFTs airdrops have become a popular tool for community building. One recent example is the formation of the Bankless DAO. Similar to Foot Guns, Bankless records a podcast and puts out a newsletter, but with the mission statement,
to help the world go bankless
Whereas we aim to help you avoid shooting yourself in the foot. The point is, Bankless created a new token called BANK and airdropped it retroactively to their premium members. They also created a Discord server only accessible to BANK holders. Holders of the BANK token can also directly participate in governance voting, and have a say in the direction of the future of BanklessDAO.
Foot Guns’ News Token
We’ve recently launched a token, FGNEWS, on the Polygon network. The main purpose of this token is a tool for you the readers. If you subscribe to our premium content and send us a public Ethereum address
we’ll send you some MATIC (if needed) and FGNEWS tokens.
Once you are subscribed we have several guides (more to come) of how to use various DeFi protocols for our paid readers. The Polygon network is cheap to use. So, you can sell some or all of your FGNEWS tokens and go out and try the DeFi protocols we talk about in our newsletter and podcast. Currently, fees on the Ethereum network are high and moving a small amount of money their to play around is not feasible (pardon the pun).
Foot Guns’ Community
We are a bit more laid back here at Foot Guns. Our drive is not to widely spread some new dogma like BanklessDAO’s goal to make the world bankless. We want to build a community around understanding, critical thought and most importantly enjoying ourselves. It’s because of this reason we’ve yet to formulate our token drop into something like governance. We want the token to be even more virgin than that. Our Discord is not restricted to paid subscribers or FGNEWS token holders, and in our Discord we are creating tasks for our members that require research, art, programming, etc.. There’s no need to hold, buy or sell FGNEWS tokens in order to participate in our community.
We’ve had members in our Discord introduce us to new crypto, learn trading tips from us and each other, install price monitoring bots in our discord, and create art to be shared with Foot Guns members. We’ve even had information shared with us from Discord members that has made it into the Newsletter (the hive mind can be powerful). You can also join our Discord and participate in the conversation to decide the future of the FGNEWS token.
FGNEWS Airdrop & Benefits
We do want to reward our readers who have taken their first steps into DeFi by installing Metamask and receiving the FGNEWS airdrop. Our first gift to those readers is this POAP badge. A POAP is an NFT that bookmarks events, action, and participation on the blockchain. Here’s what our first POAP looks like claimable by any paid subscribers who held FGNEWS tokens in their wallet prior to Sept 5, 2021.
You can claim your POAP here. More benefits will be coming exclusive to FGNEWS holders.
FGNEWS Airdrop Is Still On Going
Don’t worry! The airdrop is still ongoing. If you are already a paid subscriber email us by replying to this post with a public Ethereum address. You can get this by installing Metamask following our How To DeFi : Part 1.
If you are a free reader still, subscribe now and email us to receive the airdrop. Any readers who subscribe between now and Sept 30th will receive this POAP
Alternatively, you can remain a free subscriber, purchase 40FGNEWS tokens from Sushiswap on Polygon and then send us an email and we will send you the “New Subscriber” POAP.
NFTs have been going wild and it’s a lot to keep up with. If you’d like to follow along more closely with the NFT ecosystem we recommend you check out Morning Drop, “Your weekly dose of what’s minting, popping, and brewing”.