ETH Rio 24 - Airdrops and Beyond | Gabriel Zani, Cami Ramos, Gino Matos

Transcript

hello hello once again boys and girls I'm going to give you the the C the bucket I didn't [Laughter] forget drops and Beyond user acquisition in crypto so uh I want to welcome everybody here for uh our speakers Gabrielle Gabrielle once again come to the stage

please thanks and mat hello hello hello so uh thank you everyone for joining us for this panel uh I would

like to start asking the most important question to Camila which is when token I knew you were gonna say that so yeah thank you everyone and here we're gonna discuss uh the airdrop mattera and the point system and how they can help fer uh Community or like maybe shatter a project uh credibility I don't know you guys tell me so uh C I will start to I would like to start asking you about the be chain and its air drop you just like uh started talking about the you just talked about proof of liquidity and uh B chain started as a DJing Community coming from

the the bear bongs and uh the community was built by this this nft collection and now the the the airdrop Mania is helping like Foster this community so how it is to like not drop the ball on the community when it comes to to the airdrop like to not give false hope but also like not giving uh like not shattering the the expectations yeah so maybe I'll preface this whole conversation with saying I have never been involved D in any like projects token strategy so I'm I'm not speaking from experience here this is just purely from like a devil you know

an outside perspective of someone who who doesn't necessarily work on token airdrop strategies so I'll preface it with that and I'll also preface with saying I actually do not know anything about a be chain air drop so anything I say has nothing to do with it because I truly don't know um yeah I don't know how do you not give false hope I think one thing that's been interesting like in the last three four weeks when you know the igen layer air drop came out is kind of it sparked this conversation of you know do we actually take into consideration the the cost that it takes for users to lock up their Capital should we be you know do do protocols have kind of the job to properly reward the people who are bringing liquidity who are bringing you know bridging over their ether whatever that means my

answer is yes like I do think those people are entitled to some reward because they are providing work like in in kind of traditional markets this is something you pay for right if you need liquidity you pay for some service you pay for some like amm and this is not a weird like faux paw this is just the way it works right if you need something you need a service you need someone to provide a valuable action for you you pay for it and so I think you know how do you find that middle ground between not shattering expectations but maybe like minimizing airdrop farmer is probably like what you what you're thinking I think one interesting strategy is kind of like gaing it to very specific actions that are very clearly outlined right like that's one points program that I really like is where it's like you can go to to the

page and see like stake your LP token you know like do something something on this like curve pool where it's like super clear what you want me to do and there's some sort of like numerical representation of what this means like this means I get five points this means I get a 5x or I get a 10xer I think that's one way that seems kind of in the middle ground of of airdrops so you're not like purely farming people for their liquidity and also kind of keeping expectations you know at a place where that's reasonable that's nice and Gabriel just to add on top of what K was sharing I think the big thing about air drops is setting expectations right because um most of the time at least some of the projects they don't have like clear guidelines on how the point system is

going to work or how those things are going to play out so you're kind of not gambling but you're like taking your chances like hey I'm going to do this and I'm going to provide liquidity or I'm going to do some interesting things interact with the protocols just to get some points in order to be eligible for end drop but like most of them they didn't promise you anything but at the end of the day like does the project owe you something or not I think that's the the big question because as you guys were mentioning like you're providing liquidity you're spending not just money but like time effort Etc just like digging into the project understanding if this is safe to interact with what you can do and all that so I mean many people believe that yes I mean the project owes me something because I'm

giving them my attention at least so I actually I mean I'm expecting something in return but is that like something that all projects are going to provide I mean we have seen it not I believe like most of the people that are here have gotten air drops that they were like I mean come on it was not even worth my time you know like that doesn't even I mean save my money so I think that's something that all projects like moving ahead need to keep in mind as Kam was like sharing before on her speech like um I mean just thinking of this points matter how we are going to evolve from this like what's next I think that the big thing for projects is understanding how to set proper expectations while also trying to avoid air drop Farmers which by any means is

an easy task but it's like it needs to be done some solutions need to come up for it nice and on this uh Point matter like airdrop is uh super cool for projects to get users and maybe retain some of them that's why uh that's how they they grow their user base one of the the ways but it's kind of turning into a dangerous game now like playing with a sharp knife because you are starting to see a lot of backl FL because like you both said uh people are expecta they're not doing a favor for the project right because they they showed the their metrics and it's our Capital there so uh how do you guys see uh starting with Gabriel now uh how do

you see this meta changing like the the point and this is just like we're just like uh uh trying to to see the intangible right now trying to find something that makes sense for both sides at the end of the day right I think it's like like trying to find common ground is hard always because like it's somewhat like when you're trying to collaborate with another partner or another business like you need to find like something that is reasonable for you and the other party not easy like always someone is going to get more than the other like it's very hard for you to actually find a sweet spot in the middle so I think that projects in general have been using like different strategies it goes from referrals and like points Etc just like trying to understand how they can actually I mean put some points

mechanisms that actually Mak sense but I believe that in the future like little by little what we are going to see is I mean every single time we're going to see projects thinking more longterm than shortterm so we are seeing it already not a one single wave of air drop but actually a lot of waves a lot of like quests Etc so I think that is one step that projects can take but like how long are you actually going to do this is it going to be just like for a year or two years like you think of like when projects hit main ads how long it actually takes for for them to dropped their like L2 tokens for example like usually two years or more or less that time frame so I think that at the end of the day I mean it depends on projects to

come up with interesting ideas but I firmly believe that little by little we are going to incorporate in web 3 some of the things that um that are already being done on web too because most of the things that actually we do like we don't invent anything everything is a remix right at the end of the day like we don't come up with oh my God this is completely new Etc it's something that already exists that you like take Footprints here and there and you put something together and I believe that just like starting with referals which is something that is very common on web too but I think that we are moving towards somewhere like people are going to start using like content creation like organizing information about the project I think all of that because you YouTu nowadays we need to dig into

crypto Twitter for example for information to find the right K to find the right people the right source of informations so I think content in general is something that we need to like I mean have it synthesized a little bit more easy for people to understand because us all here I believe like 99% of people here are kind of D Jans you know we go after [ __ ] we know who are the people Etc but what about the others what about the new users how to acquire a new community that's the thing that I believe little by little we are going to learn from web 2 and adapt into web 3 so we can actually build longterm and not just like six months one month hype narratives and all that I think one thing that's really interesting is what layers Z did recently with their cibil reporting form

where basically for people who don't know they they basically put out a tweet and said if you're a cibil you can report yourself as a sible report your wallets and you can get 10% of what you would have gotten or you cannot report yourself and if we find out that you you know you sibl us you'll get nothing so it kind of put left it up to these people to decide for themselves you know is it worth the risk of not reporting should I just take my 10% and be happy because you know I really didn't know the extent of sibling because I I don't know I'm just not really that D gen like I said I don't come from a very defi background so I'm not like very tapped into like all these strategies that people do to qualify for airdrops but recently I've I've become privy to them

and it's insane it's like they're making 100 wallets and like spending hours and hours and hours like farming and then what I think is is so crazy is that then these protocols will go on Twitter and be like we have 10 million uh 10 million unique wallets and it's like everyone knows there's not 10 million crypto users you know it's like purely n like 90% probably farming and so I think the meta of of figuring out Cil has been on people's minds for a long time but I think now it's something that I imagine will be taken a lot more seriously as we're seeing more sophisticated ways of farming and now there's like YouTubers and influencers and people who write threads on like how to farm X protocol you know like it's becoming so mainstream now to be an airdrop farmer that before it was like maybe if you

were a sophisticated actor you would do this but now it's like anyone can be an aird drop farmer and everyone is becoming an aird drop farmer so I think the Civil thing is something that we'll will probably over the next year and talking about acquiring new users that's actually something I've been thinking about if you're coming to the event tomorrow we're going to do a little experiment but I think that like one experiment that would be really cool is to airdrop new users completely like literally like grabbing someone off the street okay maybe not literally but like grabbing someone off the street evangelizing crypto to them helping them get a wallet and then like having some sort of way to like you know somehow like protect this list so that it doesn't get sibl or whatever and like having this list of 10,000 new people

who know a little bit about crypto but not that much and having them be included in airdrop somehow even if it's at a smaller allocation than other people because one thing that we always say right is like why are we in crypto people can say that it's for changing the world for technology and I believe that you know and I think that's true I don't think people are lying but I also think the bottom line of everyone in crypto is economic right that is the point of crypto there is an economic Factor here whether you want to change the world I want to change the world and I'm in this industry because there's an economic Factor so we all are here for money why wouldn't we attract new people with the same meta everyone wants to make money you know so I think one strategy that's interesting and I wish

if I were a protocol if I had the power I would experiment with this I would try to find like 10,000 people evangelize crypto to them help them set up a wallet and literally airdrop them and just see how what they do do they dump it immediately like my thesis is that when you have money on the line you become more interested right like you're checking did my money go up did my money go down oh salana is doing a new fire dance like what is fire dancer now I'm going to Google it oh ethereum like the merge what is this is it going to make my token go up is it going to go down I think it's a natural way to get people to like follow crypto and to be interested when they're you know they're like my $20 it could be 50 it could be

200 or it could be zero like I'm going to pay attention and and you know try to try to win at this kind of game so that's what I would do and that's what I would love to see be experimented with and actually if you're coming to the event tomorrow we're going to do a mini version of this experiment I have friends that are locals here in Brazil and they're coming they don't know this but I'm going to have them open up wallets and we're going to airdrop them a small amount I don't know how much we're going to crowdfund a small amount I'm GNA ask everyone for like $5 and we'll air drop it to a couple of Brazilians and we'll follow their Journey for the next six months and see what happens that's cool uh about the sio I'm not as Niche so I'm not like giving my

information to ler zero I'll let their figure out they figure out G them a chance yeah so um about the round uh meta you you just mentioned Gabriel do you think that this is something uh useful to avoid like more sibles because a common meme for for airdrop farmers and we have a couple of them here uh is like I'm tired Chief like I'm really tired of pressing buttons and and stuff so when you have all these rounds when you don't get all the the money you expect on right up front when the the the air drop H happens uh do you believe like with rounds people are just going to to let go and we are starting to like the protocols will start to filter the

the actual uh like interested users do you believe this is a a way to do it I I think it's a way to do it but not definitely not not the the answer in the long term by its own because I think that what we have seen for example with like I saw a list I don't know if from I don't know if from ignas or defi Edge some like big people in a but they actually share the list of like projects that have like done their air drop like in the last I think 30 or 60 days something like that and all of them like in average the price of the token is actually down I mean somewhat like 60% something like that so at the end of the day if you do that long term you're doing the first wave and people are

dumping but what happens next I think we're two to see you know what is going to happen with those protocols that like give like the second third fourth wave of our drop SO waiting on that to see what's going to happen at the end of the day I feel like it's part of the solution definitely in my opinion I think long term you can think of like how much of the liquidity you want to like kick things off with and how much you actually want to I mean aor dropping later stages so I think it's part of that but as I said I mean it's a balance you win here you lose there so you're probably winning here getting some like real users in the long term but the price of your token may I mean be damaged a little bit so how do you want

to play around with that I think it's like any protocols like many protocols will have different ways to figure it out it depends on also like how you actually work with them like some tokens you have some great utility you know and I think that's another thing like potentially like lowering fees for holders take whatever like you can think of many different ways of actually adding value and um let's say um fake utility for a token because we see a lot of that out there um but at the end of the day I definitely think it's part of the solution I mean that's what I would say what do you think cam I don't think so I think you guys are Relentless and you guys don't have jobs so you're just like pressing wedding all day but it's tiing though yeah yeah I don't think

that I I don't really think that filters that many people out I imagine yeah because it's not just pressing buttons right we have a few guys here in Brazil they have all their complex strategies to form airdrops we have a famous guy here in Brazil guy it's called Uh defi Remora he's like a UD Hunter and he's always like making up strategies to just Farm air drops and he gets I think he gets more money from the e like the the incentives such as blast now right they're pulling they are like throwing a lot of incentives and he gets more money from those incentives than from the the tokens itself so yeah this is another question like uh how can uh Pro like projects hold ecosystems like

I'm talking about blockchains right now right how can they like not uh not again not drop the ball after uh throwing money to the users when you like uh you have blast right now they have a rising volume for the derivatives the centralized changes how you like keep it without the money right because we have the the the money on the line like you said when we have money on the line we are more interested but how you like not uh throw a lot of money at the beginning and keep people interested not to shill too much here but like mechan mechanizing it into the

protocol somehow and cementing it seems like a a good way to even once the airdrop has passed you're still making money with P right the air drop will pass but if you have if you're a bgt holder and you're delegating to a validator like you're always going to be winning rewards from the chain regardless of air drops regardless of any like external reward system it's cemented into the chain and that's why personally I'm so bullish because I don't think it's a mechanism that exists in other places and we see right when base came everyone migrated to base then blast came and everyone took their liquidity and went to blast whenever some new chain that's offering Ponzi yield comes they're going to move their liquidity there too and so there's not really a way like we don't really see sticky liquidity happen and and the other side of this is like Po kind of

you know incentivizes sticky liquidity because it says the opportunity cost of you leaving you know you're going to miss out on these rewards that are like mechanized into the system for you to go maybe speculate on something else so I think that's like one way is how do you make people's money and capital work make it efficient so that they're still getting rewarded even past the air drop and I'll be honest I think um there's a phrase that says that in a cap to like in capitalist World Capital will always find its way right and I think like in the blockchain is exactly the same thing but we are just like let's say on steroids on this you know because we will always look for the biggest you or the biggest opportunities and all that and I think that one thing that can potentially I don't know but I do

believe that it can potentially like balance things out is just like having a great U wax because if you think carefully like little by little we are moving towards a I mean a a crypto space where like everything is just like I mean everything intersect you have like Bridges now you can like take money from any chain to any chain any protocol to any protocol so what makes you stay in my opinion will be two things first of course as come said like you like where's the money at like that's what people want I mean working on coin market cap dealing with people all day like we know like people just want to know like what's the next big pump or where is the next UD and all that so I think that if you are able to have such a good experience for the user that the

US are just like it sees other you there but it's like nah but here is like comfortable for me you know I'm getting a good you or like whatever but this U really makes sense for me I think they tend to stay more I mean as we were saying like you have right now like the Bitcoin blockchain for example things you do they like it's a different experience for sure you know it's like it's slower it's different you know for people that are used to doing the fire on eth and like so on like it's completely different right and then I think that when you start to get a feel for that yeah it's like it's new and because it's new like I mean you you drink like Clear Water you know so it's like it's good to be there but at the same time I don't know if you want to

stay on a place like that long term you want to be where the ux is like okay now I can make a swap I can make transaction things go through you know you don't have like a lot of issues on doing things so I firmly believe that 100% yield where the money at is the big thing but right next to it I think if you have a good enough uxx and a good enough experience for the users you can retain a little bit of them at least I think that's actually a really good point because as someone who is newer to defi so when I say newer to D5 I have used like basic things like I've used a deck I've St I've Stak tokens and I think that's all my experience in D5 before working at Bear chain so when I started working at Bear chain I was like

okay I'm just going to go like super DJ I'm going to just try every protocol and just like just see and it's crazy how many protocols don't have [ __ ] instructions and it's like like you get there and it's like there there's just buttons I'm like like for example I tried to use Athena you guys remember you guys know Athena and and I was like how the [ __ ] do you use this I literally had to call a friend and I was like what do I do he's like yeah just take your LP and then stake it and then lock your LP and I'm like what the [ __ ] do these words mean like there's no instructions so I think it's obvious to you guys probably who do this all day every day like now I know what an LP is like you know now I know what these

words mean but at the time I was like how can anyone use this sorry if you're not a defi person like there's no way that you can use this and you know even if you look at like curve and and some of these like super leading projects there's no instructions there's just like a UI like no one tells you how to use the thing like if you go to pers for the first time a pers thing right there's like the the little thing for leverage there's a thing if you want to long it or if you want to short it there's no instructions for how to do it no one tells you how to do per you have to just like I don't know I had to watch a YouTube video about it you it's like I wish that more projects had like instructions so that someone knew even

if they don't know that much about defi like pers isn't rocket science right like it's leverag is but if there was just like three four sentences explaining what it is and how to use it I think that would be lit actually and I think you have a point yeah and and I do believe that because it's in my opinion it's part of of the human culture you know you think about like all of you guys here probably some of you are like Android users some of you are like Apple user iOS and you don't want to you don't want to change you don't want to switch it doesn't matter if it's like more expensive or less expensive like you're you're comfortable with what you have at the moment like for example you're using Converse Maybe like if you have another white shoe like n you like this one just

because it's this one doesn't matter if the other is more expensive or not and I think that is just like part of the nature that it's going to it's going to be part of crypto as well little by little we are going to have like I mean our preferred chain our preferred protocols and whatever and doesn't really matter if the biggest youu is like there because oh I can get like 3.6 here but that I can get like 3.9 I mean3 whatever I'm staying you know I'm not wasting my time to do all that so I firmly believe that protocols that build a great ux great UI they're going to win at the end of the day you know because yields come and go like bare markets bu markets but like when you have a great uxui probably that's that's where the winners are sure let's just stay on this

Lane uh let me ask you guys about like the forced social interactions that protocols they put on their users right because a lot of uh protocols they are trying to like make the squad rols and like uh TW Twitter uh res sharing RT stuff like as a a eligibility criteria right so but this is not like feasible because uh although Camila said we don't have jobs and we just press buttons we don't have the the whole day to spend on on Discord like interacting to get roles so it ends up being like GM GM GM GM and protocols like figure that and they start started Banning people who like

spam commentary and like you just won't get like the social interaction by forcing it so maybe one way to to keep users is being like completely honest and and teaching them stuff instead of of forcing uh social interactions do you believe it yeah that that's kind of one strategy that I'm going to do at Bear chain along with what I just said through my own experience like it was kind of hard to learn how to use like these derive derivative protocols and so uh we have a group called barab Bates which is like a group in bar chain focus on on women and kind of like the the ecosystem of women and one of my plans for bar baddies is to do kind of shifi style like defi education things and and I think this is like one very effective

way because instead of having people say GM a 100 times if you can teach a 100 people how to use perss which perss are they going to use like the perss that they learned with you know like if you use the bear chain UI to teach them how to use perss they're probably going to use bear chain perss for a long time is my guess you know they're not going to they're probably not going to Adventure off into other perss because they you know just like human nature right you have you feel some sort of security you feel some sort of Allegiance some sort of loyalty like Etc so I do think that's a better way to do it because honestly the social Force thing where it's like follow these people retweet 10 things like go to Discord and say this it's so cringe and I think it's so like fake and

like I understand why they do it and and I'm kind of anti this right because like I said they they use this to Cote investors and say look we have 10 million active users our blockchain is so good and then they get a $10 billion value valuation farming you you know you think you're farming them but they're farming you which is why I'm like against the kind of like oh airdrop farmers are just entitled people like no we you know we are the ones giving you the traction and giving you the numbers that you need to get these valuations to get these token prices and so I digress but yes I agree like I think that's a much better meod to go about yeah and I not that that said we so you also don't have a job and you're also clicking but but I think that um I mean we hit the na

right in the head there and I do believe in other things that just like um platforms that are already big and established in the space such as big centralized exchanges or like big websites data aggregators Etc like they do also have an opportunity to build interesting things to convert the traffic that they already have into interesting tools for projects to create a community right because you think like from a Project's perspective how am I going to reach out to people how am I going to get known in the community and all that that's why they do all this social craziness you know like retweet this do that use hashtag Etc because they need to be seen But if those big exchanges big websites Etc they are able to provide something that is actually

interesting for projects to come up and do something with them in order to forment a community for them I think that's like that's I mean a no-brainer for me just because they have as we do in coin market cap a huge traffic projects need people we have trip to people so why not join forces to create some that is interesting and maybe I'm like dropping some breadcrumbs of things that are that are to come but like I mean I I think that's like that's a huge opportunity for all big players in the market sure uh just to wrap up uh quick question do you guys see like the air drop mat uh like leaving the market in this B cycle or we're going to see air drops until the end of it assuming we have a b cycle until like late

2025 uh do you guys see it Vanishing or are we riding air drops until the end of it ladies first I think we'll probably write airdrops until the end but only because they need a way to distribute their token like airdrops are not a way to say thank you we love you thank you for using no they need to distribute their token so other people can have it so I think air drops will continue because they need a way to distribute it massively and they need a way to somehow create small filters for people that are like at least somewhat interested in their protocol so I do think that we'll see air drops because otherwise you know the alternative is like what to create some sort sort of smart contract where anyone can come claim like obviously that would never work because someone will you know it'll just get it'll get

vandalized and it'll get exploited too much so I think I think it's the only solution that we have for Distributing tokens away from the team and like reaching the goal which is to distribute and decentralize those tokens yeah I agree I think it's not going away at least until the end of the B market to be very honest with you and I do know that like probably right I am assuming a lot of people that are here also to have some like airdrop Alpha and stuff which is not something that we proposers have to give but I think that if I could give people just like a I mean an advice on when hunting air drops and doing those types of things I think that the best air drops to be very honest are like on the very small projects and to find those you probably need to be like in

the roots of like different ecosystems so my advice for everyone that is here like looking for air drops and trying to farm them and hunt them is just like maybe try to I mean an easy way go go find the relevant people that are very well connected in specific ecosystems it could be like for example nft heads for example for big communities big nft communities inside that ecosystem because we know like nft communities usually get a lot of air drops just because they are big they are part of like holders let's say and all that so go check who those people are actually following like small projects project that that are just getting started potentially you can find some interesting interesting things there in many different ecosystems and those could be like places where you find like

a life Chang changing bag hopefully but I'm not sure but I think that's the best way to do it all right uh closing thoughts shout outs maybe less chance to say one token no nothing KY you Gabriel yeah I just like to thank everyone that like I mean stand here for like almost half an hour here listening to a speak and um and I think it's been like a great event so shout out to Antonio Vaga team everyone that here putting it all together like awesome and I think that discussion was really good and um and yeah hope to connect with you guys are here if you guys like Cross by me just make sure to stop by and say hi and say all right well guys that was Camila and Gabriel thank you so much and

that's it [Applause] you