As the days of rag-to-rich bitcoin millionaires and 10,000 bitcoins for 2 pizzas are coming to a close, some crypto “freeloaders” are fancying making windfall from crypto airdrops.

Look backward, in 2013, 4,500 Ripples (XRP) would be airdropped for simply signing up for a Github account, roughly $15,000 dollar worth calculated by its price at peak;

In 2014, 6,800 XLM would be airdropped as a free marketing approach once Facebook account or phone number was added. It is roughly $5,000 dollar worth calculated by its all-time-high price at 5.5 yuan;

In 2017, 1,000 ONT would be airdropped only at the expense of filling in an email address, and its price once reached up to 69 yuan (roughly $10).

These cryptocurrencies all soared greatly since their release, especially ripple (XRP), which spiked thousands of times and hit into the top three cryptocurrencies by market cap.

For those who focus their ambitions on bitcoin but miss the good timing, they find another way – sucking free tokens by airdrops and capitalizing on the opportunity in the crypto sector, instead of investing their hard-earned money directly into the crypto bubble.

Airdrops is the process whereby a cryptocurrency project distributes its token to the wallets of some users free of charge as a way to market their project or build community. These free-coin collectors fancy that they may luckily get a ripple-like token and thus they are busy hunting for airdrops on 24/7.

This is the daily life of Wei Chen, who was actually a veteran miner but recently eyed on the airdrop wealth when he noticed that ENU spiked 500 times after its airdrop.

“Use 13 cellphones with 130 wallets downloaded to complete the ‘zero transfer’ (transfer 0 ETH from a crypto wallet to a certain ETH address in a bid to gain airdrops) in 30 minutes. It’s exhausting!” Said Wei Chen, during which dozens of airdrop alerts popped up on his 4 computer screens.

These people who revel in free crypto airdrops is called “YangMaoDang” in Chinese, literally meaning wool-pulling guys.

Wei is not alone in this new career. Zhang Qiang, a veteran bitcoin investor who walked away after suffering great losses in 2013 and returned in 2017 after the correction.

“Crypto trades, airdrops and ICOs, I take these as my fulltime job, with some friends.”

Zhang had tasted the sweetness of altcoin airdrops. In November 2017, a cryptocurrency project named MIXIN marketed its token XIN by rewarding tokens to users who sign up for accounts and referrals. Back then, a XIN was priced at 2.2 ETH, later it once hit a high of $2,300.

“I only got 10 XINs, and sold it at $1,500 per coin this May. I heard that many speculators earned buckets from XIN airdropped to them in early days.”

As the competition becomes fierce, only early birds get the worm. Zhang said he had turned to software for help, and even paid professionals to write script on getting airdrops.

“While you revel in collecting free crypto airdrops, others may take advantage of you.”

Users’ private information is very likely to be compromised, or by doing airdrops, those so-called crypto projects would have a free community shilling their scam coin.

As some skeptics said, “airdrop has lost its value as there are too many scammers cheating their way to get free tokens using multiple id & username.”

“Most of the airdrops look scammy and moreover most of the Airdrops didn’t even pay. That’s why to me airdrops are like as waste of time because it’s like lottery that one has very little chance to gain from airdrop.”