Looking back at the major airdrops over the past few years, the pattern is actually quite clear.

2020 was led by Uniswap, and that airdrop was a huge hit, redefining the entire industry’s understanding of liquidity mining. In 2021, ENS took the spotlight, followed closely by Optimism in 2022 and Arbitrum in 2023, both Layer 2 airdrops that also caused quite a stir. By 2024, Hyperliquid’s airdrop became the focus again.

In early 2025, the market turned its attention to Kaito, but this time the hype was noticeably less intense. Now that we’ve passed early January and less than a year remains until 2026, truly "blockbuster" level project airdrops have yet to surface.

It seems everyone needs to learn one lesson — don’t set your expectations for airdrops too high. The gold rush of this game has already passed, and what you pick up now often isn’t as valuable.