Plasma Airdrop by the Numbers: Minimum Deposit $0.1 Gets $13,000, One Whale Address Grabs $78.41 Million

The Plasma project's XPL token airdrop on September 25th marked a significant departure from traditional crypto airdrops by adopting an elitist, capital-centric strategy. Instead of distributing tokens widely, it focused on rewarding a small number of participants through a high-threshold public presale and targeted airdrops, creating an immense wealth effect.

Public Presale Dominance: The public presale, with a cost of $0.05 per token, was the primary distribution method. It involved 3,021 addresses receiving 987 million tokens (98.7% of the total). The average claim was worth nearly $1 million at the peak price of $1.45.
Whale Concentration: A small group of large investors dominated. 166 addresses claimed over 1 million tokens each, accounting for 80% of the presale. One whale address received 54.08 million tokens, worth approximately $78.41 million at its peak.
Targeted Airdrop as a Bonus: A separate "Sunshine Airdrop" distributed 25 million XPL to 2,687 addresses. Most recipients (2,603) were also presale participants, making the airdrop a bonus for early supporters. Some users who deposited as little as $0.1 received airdrops worth over $13,000, representing a return of up to 134,000x.
Market Performance: Contrary to typical post-airdrop sell-offs, XPL's price rose. This is attributed to the airdrop model targeting large, patient investors. On-chain data showed that 71.9% of claimed tokens were transferred shortly after, but a significant portion of addresses held their tokens.
Industry Implications: The success of this model, which prioritizes real capital over free interaction, challenges the prevailing airdrop paradigm. It effectively avoids Sybil attacks and generates positive community sentiment, suggesting a potential shift towards airdrops that reward financial contribution and deep engagement rather than mere activity.

By Frank, PANews

The Plasma project's XPL token, launched on the evening of September 25th, garnered widespread market attention. Unlike previous crypto airdrops, which often cast a wide net across hundreds of thousands of addresses, Plasma adopted a starkly different, more elitist strategy. Through a high-threshold public presale and targeted, high-value airdrops, it created a staggering wealth effect for a small number of early adopters.

This model not only enabled the project to achieve strong price performance and positive community reputation in its early days, but also prompted deep industry reflection on future airdrop mechanisms: Saying goodbye to "fleeting" (likely referring to a scam) and Sybil attacks, and shifting towards rewarding real capital and deep contributions – will this become the new paradigm? PANews takes a deep dive into XPL's token acquisition methods, its on-chain performance, and the potential industry implications.

According to PANews' investigation, users of Plasma's TGE received tokens in three ways. One was through participating in the July public presale, which offered a share of 1 billion XPL at a cost of $0.05. The other was an airdrop similar to the Sunshine Airdrop, which offered tokens to small depositors who completed Sonar (by Echo) verification and participated in the sale. There was also an unidentified airdrop, which distributed tokens to 178 addresses, ranging from 1,250 to 45,000 XPL. A total of approximately 3.3 million XPL were distributed.

Public offering frenzy: a wealth feast tailored for whales

According to the public offering data, a total of 3,021 addresses received tokens, totaling approximately 987 million tokens, representing 98.7% of the total tokens received. A notable feature of the XPL public offering is that it was dominated by large investors, with very few retail investors.

The average number of tokens claimed by each address in the public offering was 670,000. Based on the highest price of $1.45 after issuance, the average amount of tokens claimed by these addresses reached $970,000, which is close to the level of $1 million per person.

Of these, 166 addresses claimed over 1 million tokens, totaling 796 million tokens, representing 80% of the total public offering. Eighteen addresses claimed over 10 million tokens, collectively receiving over 377 million tokens, representing over 37% of the total public offering. The largest single address received 54.08 million tokens, worth approximately $78.41 million at the peak price.

There are approximately 883 addresses that have claimed less than 1,000 tokens, and these addresses have only received approximately 246,000 tokens in total.

Based on the initial on-chain investment, the cost price of this public offering was $0.05 per token, rising to a high of $1.45, a peak price increase of approximately 29 times. This also allowed many influencers (KOLs) to make a killing. For example, KOL CBB, the third-highest address in this round of claims, initially invested approximately $1.71 million. Ultimately, he received over 34 million tokens, with a maximum value of $49.63 million, generating a profit of $47.92 million. As of September 26th, CBB had transferred approximately 74.6% of its tokens.

Another example is HongKongDoll, whose initial investment was $50,000 and whose return was as high as $1.35 million. As of September 26, all XPL tokens in her on-chain address had been transferred.

For these large investors, the XPL public offering seemed like an airdrop with a threshold. Therefore, when KOLs posted the number of tokens they held on social media, they received almost unanimous praise and envy from the community.

Precision Airdrop: "Targeted Gift" under the "Sunshine"

In addition to the public offering, Plasma officials also arranged two airdrops. One was to cooperate with Binance to distribute 100 million tokens through the subscription of Plasma USDT regular products.

Another method is to directly airdrop XPL tokens on-chain to users who participated in early deposits. Based on the data, the XPL airdrop amount is not large. The total amount of airdrops allocated to users this time is 25 million tokens, with a maximum value of approximately $36.25 million.

However, since each user received 9,304 tokens, with a maximum value exceeding $13,000, any recipient of the airdrop considered it a significant gain. A total of 2,687 addresses received the airdrop on-chain. Of these, 2,603 also participated in the XPL public presale. In other words, the XPL airdrop essentially served as a bonus for early public sale participants.

Furthermore, many on social media have been discussing the idea that a $1 deposit on Plasma to receive 9,304 tokens is the most cost-effective airdrop ever. Is this true? Data indicates that some users have indeed deposited as little as $0.1 and ultimately received 9,304 tokens. This represents a 134,000x return, potentially even higher than MEME, the most hyped coin.

After the public offering and airdrop, XPL's price didn't experience a sell-off, leading to a decline. Instead, it bucked the trend and rose, leaving a deep impression on the market. Many users believe this rise is due to the fact that the public offering and airdrop primarily targeted large investors, who are more patient than retail investors.

However, actual data shows that by the afternoon of September 26th, 71.9% of claimed tokens on-chain had been transferred, likely to exchanges, while some were consolidated into new wallets. Thirty-seven wallet addresses not only did not reduce their holdings but actually increased them, totaling over 2.2 million tokens. As of now, 618 addresses (approximately 18.8%) have remained unchanged and have not made any token transfers.

Mysterious Distribution and Market Inspiration: KOL’s “Red Envelopes” and the New Airdrop Paradigm

Compared with the previous mainstream interactive airdrops, Plasma's alternative airdrop solution has indeed achieved good results.

While the number of airdrop recipients has been significantly reduced compared to previous projects, from millions to thousands, the amount of airdrops received by a single address has reached a new high. Without the need for a high-interaction process, there's no room for those who interact frequently but don't have much to lose, who might feel unfair. Furthermore, since airdrop recipients generally receive a share of the public offering, their profit margin far exceeds the airdrop amount. For them, the airdrop amount is more like a commemorative prize, and the amount isn't their primary interest.

As a result, the majority of comments on social media are about sharing their purchases and regretting not being able to participate. Complaints are almost nonexistent. Of the many airdrop projects PANews has previously analyzed, perhaps only Hyperliquiquit's situation is similar.

Looking back at the airdrop, Plasma officially contributed approximately 128 million tokens, with an airdrop value of approximately $185.6 million. This is significantly less than Magic Eden, Berachain, and Hyperliquid. However, it gained significantly more in terms of reputation and token performance.

This also seems to offer a new approach for subsequent TGE projects: instead of requiring free interaction as a condition for airdrops, a certain investment threshold is set as the airdrop criteria. This not only solves the problem of large numbers of Sybils relying on interaction to profit, but also achieves higher returns for individual addresses. While the airdrop scale and interaction data may not be as impressive, it will garner more positive feedback from the community and market performance. Perhaps this generous airdrop and strategy are the result of reflection by the Plasma team, originating from Blast, after experiencing the painful experience of airdrops. After all, Blast relied on a complex airdrop strategy to stir up the market, only to quickly fail.

In short, Plasma's token launch was a carefully planned and successful experiment that defied the prevailing airdrop model. By concentrating stakes in a small number of large capital whales and core contributors, it not only effectively avoided Sybil attacks and concentrated selling pressure after launch, but also gained excellent community reputation and market attention through its remarkable wealth effect.

Although this "favoring the rich over the poor" model is controversial in terms of fairness, its powerful effectiveness in the early stages of the project has undoubtedly provided the entire industry with a new idea worthy of deep thought - future airdrops may no longer be a free lunch, but a crowning of the value of real capital and deep participation.