- A new cohort of crypto projects is preparing to launch their tokens.
- Among them are several concluding months-long points campaigns.
Airdrops have struggled in recent months.
The summer crypto market lull combined with the perception among traders that many new tokens were launching at unsustainable valuations caused many to flop.
But with the Federal Reserve’s 0.5% interest rate cut, economic stimulus in China, and US politicians embracing crypto ahead of the November election, interest in crypto is picking back up.
Several crypto projects are preparing to capitalise on the momentum by launching tokens amid the favourable market conditions.
Here are some of the biggest.
Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid is a decentralised perpetual exchange. In simple terms, it lets users bet on crypto assets, sometimes even before they’ve launched.
On Monday, Hyperliquid launched a separate company called the Hyper Foundation and announced it will soon launch Hyperliquid’s native token, called HYPE.
The platform has a long-running campaign where users can earn so-called “points” for placing trades and depositing money into trading vaults. These points will determine how many HYPE tokens users receive.
Hyperliquid is the top decentralised perpetual exchange, with $744 million of deposits and daily trading volumes of over $1 billion, according to DefiLlama data.
Hyperliquid points are trading for $7.32 ahead of the airdrop on points trading platform Whales Market.
Swell
Swell started off as an Ether liquid staking protocol competitor to Lido. It has since launched Ether staking, Bitcoin staking, and plans to launch its own Ethereum layer 2.
Like Hyperliquid, Swell also has a long-running campaign where users can earn points by using the protocol’s services.
Earlier this month, Swell announced it will airdrop 8.5% of its 10 billion SWELL token supply to points holders. It has yet to reveal the date of the airdrop.
With $1.4 billion of deposits across all its products Swell has secured a place for itself in the hyper-competitive DeFi staking sector.
Pre launch trading on Bitget puts SWELL at a value of $0.05 per token.
Grass
Grass is an app that lets users monetise their Internet connection by helping train artificial intelligence.
For the past year, it has incentivised users to join its AI training network through a points campaign. Grass also plans to launch a Solana layer 2 network in the future to make its data collection more transparent.
In August, Wynd Network, the firm behind Grass, launched a separate entity called the Grass Foundation which will launch its GRASS token. It has yet to reveal a date for the airdrop.
Why do crypto projects launch foundations? Regulation around crypto tokens — especially in the US — is unclear at best. To avoid falling foul of such regulations, projects set up separate firms, often nonprofits, through which they launch tokens for their protocols.
Grass claims to have 2.5 million users contributing to its network. Almost all of these users are entitled to tokens, so it’s likely the airdrop will be one of the most widely distributed in history.
The GRASS token trades for $1.11 ahead of the airdrop on Whales Market.
Scroll
Scroll is a layer 2 network — a blockchain built on top of Ethereum offering faster and cheaper transactions.
DeFi natives have long speculated Scroll might follow its competitors, like ZKsync, and launch a token.
Those speculations were validated in April when Scroll launched a points campaign.
Then in early October Scroll confirmed that it planned to launch a token, called SCR. It will airdrop 7% of its 1 billion token supply to early users, with another 8% earmarked for a future airdrop.
Eligible users will be able to claim SCR starting October 22.
The SCR token trades for around $1.45 on Hyperliquid’s pre launch market, giving it a fully-diluted valuation of almost $1.5 billion.
Magic Eden
Magic Eden is the biggest NFT marketplace on Solana.
In August, it launched the ME Foundation and announced plans to launch a token called ME.
The foundation says ME will be used to incentivize people to use its associated protocols as Magic Eden expands beyond NFTs, and adds support for other blockchains.
Specific details on when the token will be launched, and how much of the supply will be dedicated to an airdrop, haven’t been revealed yet.
The ME token trades for $0.18 ahead of the airdrop on Whales Market.
Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.
