Why Most Airdrop Farmers Get Filtered (And How Not To)
You did everything on the checklist. Still got nothing.
Welcome to the filter.
Protocols Know You're Farming
They can see:
- When you bridged funds
- How long you kept them
- What you did
- Whether 10,000 other wallets did the exact same thing
If you followed an "airdrop guide" step-by-step, you probably fit a pattern. And patterns get filtered.
The Sybil Problem
A real user has one wallet and uses it naturally.
An airdrop farmer has 50 wallets doing identical actions at the same time.
Protocols are trying to reward the first group, not the second.
If your activity screams "I'm only here for the airdrop," they'll cut you.
What Gets You Filtered
From drops I've seen and analysis that gets posted after:
**Same-day in-and-out**
Bridge Monday, do tasks, withdraw Tuesday.
Congrats, you look like a bot.
**Checklist behavior**
Swap exactly $100, provide liquidity for exactly 7 days, vote on exactly 1 proposal.
If your actions match a viral thread, you're in the spam cohort.
**Round numbers**
Everyone bridging exactly $100 or exactly 0.1 ETH.
Real users do $127.34 because that's what they had.
**No holdings**
If you never hold the protocol's LP tokens, stables, or anything — just extract value and leave — why would they reward you?
**Transaction clustering**
All your actions happen in 3-hour windows whenever airdrop rumors spike. The rest of the time: ghost.
What Doesn't Get Filtered
**Early usage**
You used the protocol before anyone was talking about airdrops. Hardest to fake, highest signal.
**Natural diversity**
Some days you swap $20, some days $500. Sometimes you provide liquidity, sometimes you just bridge. Looks human.
**Holding behavior**
You have funds sitting there because you're actually using the ecosystem. Not maximizing capital efficiency across 50 chains.
**Random timing**
Your transactions don't all happen at 9 AM EST when CT wakes up. You interact at weird hours because you're in a different timezone or you have a life.
**Multiple actions per session**
Real users don't open MetaMask, do one swap, close it. They explore. They try stuff. They make mistakes.
The Multi-Wallet Trap
Running 10 wallets can work. Running 10 wallets identically will kill you.
If all your wallets:
- Bridge the same amount
- From the same source (same CEX withdrawal pattern)
- Do the same tasks
- At the same time
You're getting dusted.
Good multi-wallet strategy:
- Different amounts per wallet
- Different activity patterns
- Different timing
- Some wallets skip certain tasks
- Some wallets stay more active than others
Make each wallet look like a different person, not clones.
Testnets Are Different
Testnet farming has way less filtering because:
- No real money involved
- They need testers
- Fewer people bother
But even testnets filter now. If you mint the testnet NFT and ghost forever, you're less valuable than someone who kept testing for months.
The zkSync Reality Check
zkSync was the wake-up call for a lot of farmers.
Criteria were strict. Huge amounts of volume farmers got tiny allocations. Early users who barely did anything got more.
The message was clear: They don't want mercenary farmers.
Every protocol post-zkSync learned from that. Filtering got smarter.
What Actually Works
Forget checklists. Use the protocol like you would if there was no airdrop.
- Keep some funds on the chain
- Interact when you need to, not when a thread tells you
- Try different features
- Hold some LP tokens or protocol assets
- Don't withdraw everything the second you're "done"
- Come back multiple times over months
If you can't do that, you're not farming, you're just hoping to slip through.
Most won't.
The Real Alpha
The best airdrop I ever got, I wasn't trying to farm it.
I was just using the protocol because it was cheaper than mainnet. Did a bunch of transactions over months. Forgot about it.
Token dropped. Five figures.
That's what they're rewarding.
If you can fake that, go ahead. But it's easier to just be that.