Author|Golem(@web 3_golem)
"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 completely transformed into "grab Yuanbao wool" mutual aid groups.
For crypto enthusiasts, transitioning from esteemed crypto traders to wool-pulling participants in Yuanbao red envelopes is also a helpless move.
Starting from January 31st, global financial markets plummeted. Precious metals, which had previously surged, quickly crashed. Spot silver nearly erased its yearly gains, and spot gold once fell below $4500. The crypto market didn't fare much better. On February 2nd, Bitcoin broke below the $75,000 support level, hitting a low of $74,604. ETH fell to a low of $2157.14, and SOL even lost the $100 level, touching a low of $95.95.
According to Coinglass data, the crypto market saw a total of $2.5615 billion in liquidations on January 31st, setting a record for the highest single-day liquidation volume since the "10/11 crash." Therefore, "too亏损到不想说话 (losing so much that I don't want to talk)" became the true psychological state of many crypto enthusiasts (like the silent Yi Lihua).
For crypto enthusiasts who just experienced a bloodbath, grabbing Yuanbao red envelopes, though a drop in the bucket for recouping losses, provides some psychological comfort, offering a temporary escape from the harsh market reality.
A joke 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 a gimmick.
The amount of cash red envelopes Yuanbao can distribute to each user is not large, mostly ranging from a dozen to a few dozen RMB, but the valuable part is that the interaction is simple and truly cost-free. Users only need to spend a little time recruiting people and step-by-step experiencing product features to get 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 realized only after the tokens are sold. Although the amount received seems much larger than Yuanbao's in most cases, after deducting the costs of time, research, opportunity, friction, and potential risk of being stuck with worthless tokens, how much is really left?
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上岸 (made it ashore), but the community was collectively反撸 (screwed over).
一千万是只猫 (X: @RXu107) is a typical example of being反撸. On February 1st, he posted that he spent over $11,900 (approximately 82,000 RMB) participating in this project (4400 U for NFT, 7500 U for public sale) and deeply accompanied it for 406 days as a community member. But on TGE day, not only did he not recover his costs, but his paper loss also exceeded 100,000 RMB (2900 U + 11,284 locked INX tokens).
Facing the反撸, the blogger had no choice but to repeatedly tell his friends how upset he was.
The blogger反撸 by Infinex tells his friend how upset he is
Infinex's fully diluted valuation at TGE 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.
Facing the pain of being反撸 and deceived, most people in the community choose the same approach as "一千万是只猫" – swallowing their losses. But 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 hunting, but ironically, in 2025, Ice Frog was either defending airdrop rights or on his way to defend airdrop rights. He is still negotiating with the prediction market project Space (Odaily Note: Space raised $20 million publicly, 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 the "moral decay" of a single project, but the result of a整套 (whole set of) changes in the industry structure.
In 2020, Uniswap opened the era of crypto project airdrops. Since then, there have been constant major airdrop opportunities (大毛) in the crypto space. Stories of getting a car, a house, or reaching A8 (wealth level) from airdrops attracted batch after batch of people into the airdrop hunting track, presenting an aesthetic 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换取 (exchanging for) the next round of financing window. Thus, major airdrops disappeared, small airdrops shrank, and "being反撸" became the industry norm.
The so-called airdrop is essentially rewriting the advertising budget into a reward pool, bypassing third parties to directly establish growth relationships with users. Whether it's the 1 billion RMB given by Web2's Yuanbao or the fixed airdrop allocation in Web3 project tokenomics, the essence is this same logic.
But the difference is that Web2 giants use cash to buy user certainty, while Web3 offers token rewards as a promise that may be fulfilled. This results in the same strategy leading to two different destinies.
The certainty of Yuanbao's cash red envelopes comes from cash flow and约束机制 (binding mechanisms). Tencent's strong cash flow determines that Yuanbao "can pay out." The binding mechanisms under mature laws determine that Yuanbao "cannot renege." Coupled with the "simple and brainless" no-threshold interaction, users naturally understand it as a "welfare benefit."
In contrast, crypto enthusiasts not only付出 (invest) costs several times higher than Web2羊毛党 (wool-pullers) (e.g., capital, time, energy), but also worry about being sybil attacked, token unlock periods, and ever-changing airdrop rules. The most ironic thing is that the收益 (returns) obtained in the end are not even as good as Yuanbao's.
Therefore, airdrops in the crypto space today have long degenerated from direct growth rewards into promises where the fulfillment of responsibility is constantly postponed, or even not fulfilled at all. If this situation does not change in 2026, the user retention rate will be sacrificed along with it.
From User Growth to Retention, the Utility of Airdrops Can Only Last the First Half
Using airdrops for user growth has always been the most common and direct means in the business world to deal with powerful competitors.
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 track, Polymarket dominates. To compete for users, Opinion, predict.fun, and Limitless also use points airdrops for user growth, directly pulling users into the product.
In the short term, airdrops can indeed create a huge user influx entry point. But in the long run, what determines user retention is still product-market fit, user experience, and ecological linkage, among other factors. In Web3's business history, there are no shortage of project cases that were bustling before the airdrop but became deserted afterwards. 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 extreme familiarity with the "user growth → retention → habit" chain. Whether they can create another miracle for Yuanbao in the same way is still debated, but they at least have ample experience in "how to convert airdrops into retention."
To this end, Odaily Planet Daily contacted an internal staff member of Yuanbao and asked from a product perspective how Web3 project airdrops should be improved. The answer was very practical:
"As one of the internet companies with the largest market capitalization, Web3 projects may not have direct lessons to learn from Tencent. But the core of user growth methods like airdrops is still improving retention. This requires a series of联动 (linkages) after the airdrop. For example, PR and marketing need to think about how to further spread the玩法 (gameplay/mechanism). The product side also needs to make more moves to achieve this."
From the perspective of Web3 practitioners, merely discussing traffic tactics feels shallow. What product features, beyond the token, can actually retain users is worth more scrutiny.
