Project party must read: Say goodbye to airdrop traps, let the model of "the wool comes from the pig" achieve long-term rise.

In recent years, airdrops have become a standard operation for encryption projects on the eve of token issuance (TGE). Through the lure of free tokens, the project party hopes to accumulate enough heat and user follow before the launch. However, the reality is often that the project "peaks at launch," with heat and prices rapidly dropping in a short time. Users often sell immediately after receiving airdrops, leading to pressure on the token market, cooling community enthusiasm, and the user base that the project party has just built collapsing as well.

Although the traffic brought by Airdrop is considerable in the short term, it is difficult to truly convert it into community assets or product users. Due to the lack of genuine commercial scenarios supporting most projects, after the Airdrop, they often rely on issuing more coins to maintain user activity. This incentive mechanism essentially overdraws future value. Ultimately, most of these Tokens and user traffic flow into the arbitrage cycle of "wool party," and the resources that genuinely support project development are wasted. The means originally designed to kickstart the ecosystem have instead become a burden that undermines the project's vitality.

To break out of this vicious cycle, the conclusion is: the project must become a "wool can be pulled from the pig's body project." The benefits to be given to users should truly be borne by third parties willing to pay. The saying "wool comes from the pig's body" refers to platforms providing products or services to users for free, while other market entities foot the bill. In the context of Web3, this means that the project party does not profit directly from the user side, but instead provides benefits to users first, with other stakeholders funding the bill, resulting in a win-win-win situation: users benefit for free, the project expands its influence, and the paying party gains users, data, or brand exposure.

Implement the three-step method: build an ecological closed loop

If you are a project party, you might be thinking: "I also want others to pay for my users, how can I do that?" I suggest thinking in three steps:

1. Define the core user group clearly: Please specify who the most important users for the project are at this stage. Are they the veterans who trade on your platform? Or are they the everyday users of your product? Or perhaps the investors holding your Token? In other words, you need to first answer "what kind of user behavior counts as success." Only by identifying the core user group that can truly bring results can the subsequent strategies stay on target.
2. Mining Unique Competitive Advantages: Analyze the project's moat and identify advantages that others cannot easily replicate. This could be cutting-edge technological strength (such as robust infrastructure), a large and active user community, unique data assets, etc. Ask yourself: "What unique skills do we have that other projects lack but desperately need?" Only by clarifying your core value can you confidently charge others.
3. Finding the Paying "Pig": Identify the partners who need your resources the most and are willing to pay for them. For example, if an exchange or a public chain project has strong liquidity, you can collaborate with new projects where they purchase access to your platform using tokens or funds; if you operate a DApp with a large number of active users, other projects looking for users may be willing to pay to conduct airdrops or promotional activities through your channel. In short, whoever lacks your advantages is the one willing to pay, the "Pig."

Through the above three steps, you will find that "others provide you resources to benefit your users" is not a fantasy, but a designable business model. Essentially, you are using your own core resources to help partners achieve their goals, while partners invest to benefit your users, creating an ecological closed loop. This not only allows users to continuously enjoy dividends but also strengthens the stickiness of your ecosystem.

Typical case: Binance's liquidity strategy

Taking the world's largest exchange Binance as an example, its core advantages are strong liquidity and a large user base. Binance's target users mainly include traders and BNB Token holders. It proposes to new projects: willing to exchange Tokens or funds for liquidity and exposure opportunities. Binance distributes new project Tokens for free to users holding BNB or participating in mining through activities like Alpha Airdrop. This method helps new projects quickly gain user attention and liquidity while bringing additional benefits to Binance's loyal users, thereby enhancing the stickiness of BNB holders. The Alpha Airdrop distributes new project Tokens to active users who participate in locking, trading, and providing liquidity, achieving a win-win situation where "users gain dividends and new projects gain exposure."

By the way, a common question is: "Why doesn't Binance give airdrops to ordinary spot trading users?" The answer is that the trading volume on the main platform is largely provided by market makers (MM), who earn profits from liquidity. Binance needs to retain these core market makers, so they are more willing to allocate airdrop benefits to a larger number of small and medium retail users, promoting new projects by expanding a broader user base. This approach aligns with the spirit of "the wool comes from the pig": providing free scratches for retail investors, while the actual funding comes from the project party needing liquidity and the market makers maintaining the market.

Another noteworthy case is the social incentive platform Kaito. Its operational mechanism essentially uses user behavior data and content participation on social media (mainly Twitter) as "assets" to attract traffic, and then collaborates with other cryptocurrency project parties to distribute their tokens as rewards to content contributors. Under this structure, users accumulate points or receive Airdrops by "outputting attention and voice," while the real cost of incentives is borne by those new project parties wishing to expand their influence through social volume before TGE.

On the surface, this is a typical "wool comes from the pig" business model: users benefit for free, the Kaito platform meets the demand, and the project party pays for the exposure. However, there are obvious structural risks to the sustainability of this model. Its core reliance is whether Kaito has the ability to maintain a long-term presence as an entry point for social attention. If in the future the project party has more efficient or cost-effective customer acquisition methods, the value of Kaito as a "middleman" will significantly decrease.

Win-win cooperation: core values determine the ecological lifeline

Whether it is a technology-driven project or a community-driven project, the premise is to always maintain your core competitiveness. Once you lose the unique value that makes others willing to pay, this model will not work. "Wool" ultimately relies on the "pig" seeing value and being willing to spend money. If you find it difficult to identify your own advantages, then you should consider adjusting your direction or focusing on the areas where you excel.

For the project party, instead of just pouring money into driving up the price, it is better to think more about what resources can be exchanged with others. Find suitable partners to bring external forces into your ecosystem. For example, your strong user community can bring traffic to other new projects, or your unique data resources can help projects make decisions. These are values that others are willing to pay for with funds or Tokens. Once successful, your users enjoy tangible benefits, you also strengthen the ecological stickiness, and partners achieve their goals - a win-win for all.

Investor Perspective: Focused more on sustainable empowerment

Nowadays, the hype in the encryption market has subsided, and investors are becoming more rational, which is a sign of industry maturity. As an industry observer, I believe that projects that can survive in the long term must either have breakthroughs in technology or product levels (providing long-term value) or innovate in their business models (providing a virtuous cycle). Projects that can achieve both naturally have a greater advantage.

For investors, the next time you encounter a project boasting loudly, first ask whether it has the ability to generate revenue with third-party buyers: can the project actually ensure that "pigs can keep flying"? After all, only those cooperative models that can make "pigs trade daily and ensure sheep never starve" can ultimately succeed in this market.

The idea of "the wool comes from the pig" is not just a slogan, but a feasible strategy for guiding project operations. It requires the project party to clarify its own value, design an ecological subsidy mechanism, and work with partners to build growth together.