Potential airdrop opps in NFTs 🪂
Will these projects launch governance tokens?
Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & digital collectibles
Dear Bankless Nation,
The new decentralized NFT marketplace sudoswap recently unveiled its $SUDO token plans.
Like we’ve seen plenty of times before in DeFi and NFTs, the protocol’s builders are allocating a chunk of its governance tokens through a retroactive airdrop to its early liquidity providers.
If you’re interested in getting airdropped more responsibility like this from notable NFT efforts, a simple starting point is trying NFT projects that haven’t released governance tokens yet and that could conceivably do so in the future.
For today’s Metaversal, I’ve created a list of projects that appear to meet these basic targeting criteria. Let’s dive in then and put them on your radar!
-WMP
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15 potential NFT governance airdrop opps
Managing expectations
Of all the projects below, I think only two have announced explicit governance token plans. All the others I’ve listed simply because they don’t have a governance token yet and because elements of their designs would seemingly fit well with future community governance.
To be sure, this isn’t the most precise targeting methodology! Some of the efforts below may never launch governance tokens, at least not as ERC20s. However, in contemporary crypto many projects embrace community governance via ERC20s at some point, so it’s not crazy to assume that at least a couple of those listed below will do the same.
All that said, try these projects knowing you may never receive anything but the satisfaction of supporting pioneering tech and the benefit of building out your NFT skill tree. If you do receive any associated airdrops in the future, it’ll be icing on the cake. Now let’s walk through the candidate projects, which I’ve grouped across three categories: marketplaces, group collecting, and NFTfi.
🛒 NFT marketplaces
1. Zora
Description: Zora is a universal media registry protocol that makes it easy for people to buy, sell, and curate NFTs.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Zora: Zora V3 has protocol “Fee Switch” NFTs, a.k.a. ZORFs, which are presently owned by Zora DAO. If Zora opts to open up ZORFs to wider community steering, it may use a governance token to do so.
Potential airdrop strategy: Create and collect NFTs on Zora!
2. Nifty Gateway
Description: Nifty Gateway is an NFT marketplace.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Nifty Gateway: Nifty Gateway just unveiled its new Publishers system, which is opening the platform to community curation. I speculate that the project may eventually embrace a governance token to decentralize this curation model even further.
Potential airdrop strategy: Collect NFTs on Nifty Gateway!
3. Foundation
Description: Foundation is an NFT marketplace.
Why Foundation: Foundation’s FAQ says the project “does not currently have a token.” To me, the operative word there is currently. That phrasing suggests Foundation may eventually launch its own governance token.
Potential airdrop strategy: Create and collect NFTs on Foundation!
4. Gem
Description: Gem is an NFT marketplace aggregator.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Gem: People thought the chances of Gem rolling out its own token was squashed when OpenSea acquired the NFT aggregator earlier this year. In the wake of that news, Gem co-founder Vasa said token plans still were “not out of the question,” and we haven’t heard anything otherwise since, so the possibility is seemingly in play.
Potential airdrop strategy: Sweep NFTs on Gem!
5. Quix
Description: Previously known as Quixotic, Quix is the first NFT marketplace on the Optimism layer-two (L2) scaling solution.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Quix: Quix may look to eventually consolidate its lead as Optimism’s first-mover NFT marketplace by invigorating its community with a governance token.
Potential airdrop strategy: Collect NFTs on Quix!
6. Stratos
Description: Created by the same team that built Quix, Stratos is an NFT marketplace deployed on the Arbitrum L2.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Stratos: Treasure’s Trove is the reigning marketplace on Arbitrum today and Trove has $MAGIC, so Stratos may eventually release its own token in a bid to grab more market share from its biggest competitor.
Potential airdrop strategy: Collect NFTs on Stratos!
7. Protecc
Description: Protecc is an upcoming NFT liquidity protocol.
Why Protecc: While Protecc isn’t live on mainnet yet, it will be soon. And since other liquidity protocols like NFT20, NFTX, and now sudoswap have their own native tokens, there’s reason to believe Protecc will embrace the same approach too.
Potential airdrop strategy: Buy and sell NFTs on Protecc once it’s launched!
8. fx(hash)
Description: fx(hash) is a generative art platform and NFT marketplace on the Tezos blockchain.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why fx(hash): fx(hash) plans to launch a DAO and an FXH token, though those plans have been paused for now. The distribution details haven’t been unveiled yet, so using the platform today may slot you in for an FXH airdrop in the future.
Potential airdrop strategy: Buy and sell NFTs on fx(hash)! Check out my Quick Guide to Tezos NFTs if you don’t know where to start.
🎉 Group collecting projects
9. Tessera
Description: Previously known as Fractional, Tessera is a protocol for collectively owning and governing NFTs.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Tessera: At the heart of Tessera is the notion of collective ownership. Toward that idea, the project may eventually make the protocol itself collectively owned through a governance token.
Potential airdrop strategy: Buy and sell fractions of NFTs on Tessera once the project’s new UI is launched!
10. PartyBid
Description: PartyBid is a dapp that makes it easy for groups of people to collectively bid on NFTs together.
Why PartyBid: PartyBid is built by PartyDAO, which is managed via the $PARTY token. If PartyDAO ever decides to expand further, it may do so by expanding $PARTY to the public.
Potential airdrop strategy: Collect fractions of NFTs through PartyBid!
📈 NFT finance
11. Arcade
Description: Arcade is an NFT borrowing and lending protocol.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Arcade: Arcade currently doesn’t charge any protocol fees, but the project’s FAQ notes that fees may be charged in the future. If that happens, Arcade may use a governance token so that its community can decide these fee parameters.
Potential airdrop strategy: Borrow or Lend on Arcade!
12. Astaria
Description: Astaria is an upcoming NFT borrowing and lending protocol.
Why Astaria: “We believe that web3 platforms live by their community,” Astaria’s team said last month. “Be sure to keep an eye out for what we have planned for our community after the launch.”
Potential airdrop strategy: Take out an NFT loan on Astaria once it’s live!
13. Hook
Description: Hook is a new NFT-native options protocol.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Hook: Hook’s protocol is “potentially upgradeable in the future to timelocks or even governance contracts,” per the project’s docs. That said, don’t be surprised if Hook eventually rolls out a governance token.
Potential airdrop strategy: Buy NFT call options on Hook as liquidity permits!
14. MetaStreet
Description: MetaStreet is a decentralized interest rate protocol for NFTs.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why MetaStreet: The project’s landing page teases that governance will be needed in the future to determine which new NFTs are creditworthy or not.
Potential airdrop strategy: Deposit into one of MetaStreet’s vaults!
15. Sodium
Description: Sodium is an NFT borrowing and lending protocol.
Resources: Website | Twitter | Discord
Why Sodium: The project has explicitly stated it plans to release its SOD token post-launch.
Potential airdrop strategy: Borrow or lend through the project once it’s live!
Action steps
🪂 Consider trying potential NFT airdrop candidate projects like the ones listed above
✨ Read my previous Celebrating the Merge with NFTs write-up if you missed it!
Author Bio
William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal—a Bankless newsletter focused on the emergence of NFTs in the cryptoeconomy. He’s also recently been contributing content to Bankless, JPG, and beyond!
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