Author: Golem
Original Title: The Biggest Airdrop for Crypto Enthusiasts Comes from Yuanbao
"xxx has sent you a cash red envelope!"
After the Yuanbao cash red envelope activity began on February 1st, many long-dead project/research exchange groups have completely transformed into "Yuanbao wool-pulling" mutual aid groups.
For crypto enthusiasts, transitioning from esteemed crypto traders to Yuanbao red envelope wool-pullers is a move born out of necessity.
Starting January 31st, global financial markets plummeted. Precious metals, which had previously surged, crashed rapidly. Spot silver nearly erased its year-to-date gains, and spot gold once fell below $4500. The crypto market fared no better. On February 2nd, Bitcoin broke below the $75,000 support level, hitting a low of $74,604. ETH dropped to a low of $2157.14, and SOL even fell below $100, touching a low of $95.95.
According to Coinglass data, the crypto market saw a total liquidation of $2.5615 billion on January 31st, setting a record for the highest single-day liquidation since the "10/11 crash." Thus, "too devastated to speak" became the true psychological state of many crypto enthusiasts (like the silent Yi Lihua).
For those who just experienced a bloodbath, pulling Yuanbao red envelopes, though a drop in the bucket for recouping losses, offers some psychological comfort and a temporary escape from the harsh market reality.
Jokes in group chats
Crypto Airdrops: From Swallowing Losses to Passionate Rights Defense
Calling Yuanbao's cash red envelopes the biggest airdrop for crypto enthusiasts today is not just a gimmick.
The cash red envelope amount Yuanbao distributes to each user isn't large, mostly ranging from a dozen to several tens of RMB. However, its value lies in its simplicity and truly zero cost. Users only need to spend a little time recruiting people and systematically experiencing product features to receive cash red envelopes. The task cycle is short, allowing for quick returns.
In contrast, airdrops from crypto projects are first distributed in the form of tokens. Profit is only realized after the tokens are sold. While the nominal amount received is often much larger than Yuanbao's, after deducting the costs of time, research, opportunity, friction, and potential losses from being stuck with unsellable tokens, how much remains?
A user who accompanied Infinex for 406 days deeply feels this. On January 31st, the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform Infinex announced its TGE and airdrop claims. The project team successfully reached shore, but the community was collectively "rug-pulled."
"Ten Million is a Cat" (X: @RXu107) is a typical example of being rug-pulled. On February 1st, they posted that they spent over $11,900 (approximately 82,000 RMB) participating in this project (4400 U for an NFT, 7500 U for the public sale), and as a community member, deeply accompanied it for 406 days. But on TGE day, not only did they not recoup their costs, but they also faced a paper loss of over 100,000 RMB (2900 U + 11,284 locked INX tokens).
Faced with the rug-pull, the blogger had no choice but to repeatedly express their distress to friends.
The rug-pulled blogger expresses distress to a friend
At its TGE, Infinex's fully diluted valuation was only $150 million. The total investment in Yuanbao's New Year red envelope activity is approximately $140 million USD. What does this mean? It's equivalent to Tencent directly buying Infinex at its maximum valuation and giving it away for free to the entire nation.
Faced with the pain of being rug-pulled and deceived, most people in the community choose the same approach as "Ten Million is a Cat"—swallowing the bitter pill. However, some choose to stand up and confront the project team.
Crypto blogger Ice Frog (X: @Ice_Frog666666) is a typical representative. He started by airdrop farming, but ironically, in 2025, Ice Frog was either defending airdrop rights or on his way to do so. He is currently still negotiating with the prediction market project Space (Odaily Note: Space raised $20 million in public sale, the team privately took $13 million) and has even taken legal measures.
Web2 Can Afford Airdrops, Web3 Can't Fulfill Promises
The most ironic point is that today's imbalance between "input and return" in crypto airdrops is not due to the "moral bankruptcy" of a single project, but rather the result of a整套 (entire set of) structural changes in the industry.
In 2020, Uniswap opened the era of crypto project airdrops. Since then, there have been constant major "drops" (large airdrops) in the crypto space. Stories of getting a car, buying a house, or reaching A8 (wealth level) from airdrops attracted batch after batch of people into the airdrop farming track, presenting an illusion of "the industry is on the rise."
But by 2025, this changed. Market narratives dried up, primary financing weakened, secondary buying power was insufficient. Airdrops were no longer about sharing the future with early users, but more like mortgaging the future for present data, creating an exit path for the project team itself or securing the next round of financing. Thus, major drops disappeared, small drops shrank, and "being rug-pulled" became the industry norm.
So-called airdrops are essentially just advertising budgets rewritten as reward pools, bypassing third parties to directly establish growth relationships with users. Whether it's the 1 billion RMB from Web2's Yuanbao or the fixed airdrop allocation in Web3 project tokenomics, the essence is the same logic.
But the difference is that Web2 giants use cash to buy user certainty, while Web3 offers token returns as a promise that might be fulfilled. This results in the same tactic leading to two different fates.
The certainty of Yuanbao's cash red envelopes comes from cash flow and constraint mechanisms. Tencent's strong cash flow determines that Yuanbao "can pay out," and the constraint mechanisms under mature law determine that Yuanbao "cannot renege." Coupled with the "simple and brainless" zero-threshold interaction, users naturally perceive it as a "welfare benefit."
In contrast, crypto enthusiasts not only incur costs several times higher than Web2羊毛党 (wool-pullers) (e.g., capital, time, energy) but also worry about being sybil attacked, token lock-up periods, and ever-changing airdrop rules. The most ironic part is that the returns from all this effort ultimately might not even match Yuanbao's.
Therefore, today's crypto airdrops have long degenerated from direct growth rewards into promises where the fulfillment of obligations is constantly postponed, or even unfulfilled. If this situation does not change in 2026, user retention will be sacrificed along with it.
From User Acquisition to Retention, Airdrop Utility Only Lasts the First Half
Using airdrops for user acquisition has always been one of the most common and direct tactics in the business world to compete against powerful rivals.
Tencent invested 1 billion RMB cash to support Yuanbao because its competitor Doubao is strong enough—by the end of 2025, Doubao was the first AI product in China to reach 100 million daily active users. The same goes for Web3. In the prediction market赛道 (track), Polymarket dominates. To compete for users, Opinion, predict.fun, and Limitless also use points airdrops for user acquisition, directly pulling users into their products.
In the short term, airdrops can indeed create a massive user influx. But in the long run, what determines user retention remains product-market fit, user experience, and ecological synergy, among other factors. In Web3's business history, there are no shortage of project cases that were bustling before the airdrop but deserted afterward. Therefore, both Web2 and Web3 face the same "post-airdrop problem": how to retain users.
Ten years ago, Tencent, a company adept at imitating and then surpassing, used "WeChat Red Envelopes" to push WeChat Pay into a national-level入口 (entry point), proving its familiarity with the "user acquisition → retention → habit" chain. Whether they can recreate Yuanbao's miracle in the same way is众说纷纭 (debatable), but they at least have ample experience in "how to convert airdrops into retention."
To this end, Odaily Planet Daily contacted an internal Yuanbao staff member and asked, from a product perspective, how Web3 project airdrops should be improved. The answer was pragmatic:
"As one of the internet companies with the largest market cap, Tencent's experience might not be directly applicable to Web3 projects. But the core of using airdrops for user acquisition is still improving retention. This requires a series of post-airdrop联动 (linkages/synergies). For example, PR and marketing need to think about how to further propagate the玩法 (gameplay/mechanisms), and the product side also needs to take more actions to achieve this."
From the perspective of Web3 practitioners, merely discussing traffic tactics feels superficial. What product features, beyond the token, can actually retain users is worth pondering more deeply.
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