Game On: The Hottest Upcoming Gaming Token Airdrops – Decrypt

Airdrop season is in full swing, with apps, protocols, and other projects seizing upon signs of an impending bear market to finally drop their tokens—and potentially reward millions of crypto users in the process.

What exactly is an airdrop, though? When it comes to crypto tokens, an airdrop is typically a way for a project to reward its early users and contributors by giving them a share of a newly launched token, all while spreading the tokens far and wide for decentralized governance.

When it comes to blockchain networks and tokens primed specifically for gaming, there are some pretty compelling airdrops on the horizon in the months ahead. Here’s a look at what’s coming for gamers—there may still be time to get involved and score some tokens ahead.

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Pixels

Pixels, currently the buzziest game on Axie Infinity‘s Ronin sidechain for Ethereum, wrapped up its latest “play-to-airdrop” campaign in January and just launched the PIXEL token on February 19 via Binance.

In addition to the 28,000 or so play-to-airdrop token recipients, Pixels is also giving out 20 million PIXEL tokens to Ronin (RON) stakers. Furthermore, the game offered up a whopping 350 million PIXEL tokens to Binance customers through a launchpad campaign leading up to the token generation event (TGE).

Portal

Portal is undoubtedly one of the buzziest airdrops on the horizon, though it has also been controversial. The multi-chain gaming token, designed to bridge the gap between Web3 games across various blockchains, has incentivized crypto users to earn credit towards the airdrop by creating, sharing, and interacting with Twitter content—which they’ve done en masse.

As obnoxious as that can be, there’s still a lot of hype around what Portal is building. Much of the team comes from the Overlord and Creepz NFT team at SuperDuper, they’ve recruited a Rockstar Games co-founder and other advisors, and have lined up allies like major talent agency WME and NFT marketplace Magic Eden.

Portal said the airdrop was coming in January following a recent presale period and the launch of the latest version of its Crystal Dash airdrop farming experience. The timeline was apparently extended, however, and on February 16 the project said that it was in the “last stretch” before the token debuts. Stay tuned.

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Saga Protocol

Saga is a new blockchain network designed primarily for gaming, so it makes sense that the way to potentially earn a share of the upcoming airdrop is by playing games. In December, Saga launched a “play-to-airdrop” campaign across several games running on testnet, with the top leaderboard finishers set to earn a share of SAGA tokens.

In fact, Saga CEO Rebecca Liao told Decrypt’s GG that some players might ultimately earn “double airdrops,” since games may also launch their own tokens and award them to early users. The Saga mainnet is set to go live in spring 2024, with more competitions set to take place in the coming months.

Saga has also revealed that some users on Polygon, Avalanche, Cosmos, and Celestia will also be eligible to claim tokens in the airdrop. Furthermore, Saga is launching a “Three Kingdoms” play-to-airdrop campaign across games on Solana, Polygon, and Avalanche, including heavy hitters like Parallel, Shrapnel, and Gas Hero.

Nifty Island

Launched in open beta on January 17, Nifty Island is a new sandbox-style game that mashes up the feel of Animal Crossing, Roblox, and Fortnite’s Creative mode, letting you customize your own island and play with other users. And it offers a play-to-airdrop campaign with many different ways to potentially earn ISLAND tokens.

According to a tweet thread, Nifty Island will award users points based on factors like how much they play, how many players they refer into the game, and which other NFT assets they own in connected wallets. It’s unclear when the token drop will happen, but people are flooding in to get a potential share of the ISLAND launch ahead.

Nyan Heroes

Solana hero shooter Nyan Heroes, which features cats piloting giant mech suits, is set to launch its early access version in February and debut a play-to-airdrop campaign alongside it. Details are still to come, but the Overwatch-like shooter—which is listed in the Epic Games Store—will award NYN tokens to early players. Owners of Nyan Heroes NFTs will be eligible for even greater token rewards.

Apeiron

Along with Pixels, here’s another game running on Axie Infinity’s Ronin chain that’s doing an airdrop campaign. Apeiron is billed as a glossy mash-up of classic god games (like Populous) and card-battling “roguelite” experiences, delivering an experience that’s sure to require careful strategy.

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In January, Apeiron revealed a play-to-airdrop campaign that will reward players of the Epic Games Store battle demo with points towards the future ANIMA token drop, along with incentives for completing other actions or owning certain NFTs. Click here for more details.

Shuffle

Crypto casino Shuffle is planning three airdrop waves for its SHFL token on Ethereum, in an effort to reward users from its first year of operation. The online platform, which supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins, plans to kickstart the drop during the first week of March. Shuffle says 28% of its token supply will go to airdrops.

AI Arena

AI Arena, a game that pairs Super Smash Bros-style brawling with artificial intelligence smarts, is launching a play-to-airdrop campaign with 40 million NRN tokens up for grabs. Another 40 million tokens will be allocated for the game’s NRN prize boxes. The game challenges players to train AI combatants that fight automatically on their behalf. The play-to-airdrop drive is underway with the token launch expected in about three months, the developers told Decrypt.

WUFFI

The WAX blockchain has been promoting the upcoming airdrop for a “gaming meme coin” called WUFFI, albeit with the token name WUF, which will apparently start on WAX and then expand to Solana at some point.

WUF took a snapshot of eligible holders on January 31 ahead of an eventual first airdrop wave, but no timing has been confirmed for the actual drop. Numerous WAX games and apps have pledged to support the incoming token.

Notcoin

Notcoin is a gaming project that runs on messaging app Telegram, and claims that it has racked up millions users who are frantically mashing a button to collectively “mine” Notcoin. Well, sort of. Here’s the thing: Notcoin isn’t a real cryptocurrency yet. But it will be, apparently! Notcoin is being vague about the whole thing, so we wouldn’t be surprised if it just drops someday without much notice.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on December 27, 2023 and was last updated with new info on February 19.

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