Airdrop Allocation Simulator

How points programs become tokens

1. Earn phase. You contribute something measurable (bandwidth, volume, testnet activity) and the project logs points off-chain.
2. Snapshot. On an announced (or surprise) date, balances freeze. Activity after the snapshot earns nothing for that round.
3. Conversion. A pool of tokens is divided pro-rata:
   your tokens = pool × your points / all points. Referral multipliers inflate your numerator, which is why the referral slider changes your share, not the pool.
4. Sybil filtering. Farms of fake accounts get purged; heavy multi-account behavior can zero an allocation.
5. Claim window. Usually 30–90 days on the official site only. Unclaimed tokens often return to the treasury.

Vesting: why you can't sell it all day one

Most airdrops unlock in tranches to soften sell pressure. The simulator assumes a common shape:

• TGE unlock: 30% liquid at the token generation event.
• Linear vest: the remaining 70% streams over 12 months.
• Listing-day prices are usually the cycle high for airdropped tokens; the fully-vested USD figure above assumes the price never moves, which it will.
• Some programs add lockup boosts: opt to vest longer for a larger total. Model that as trading certainty for size.

Reading your own simulation

• Notice the denominator problem: doubling your points doubles your tokens, but if total network points double too (slider 4), you gain nothing. Late farming is diluted farming.
• The pool slider matters more than grinding: 10% vs 5% community allocation doubles everyone’s drop instantly. Read tokenomics docs first.
• Price sliders are fantasy until listing. Value estimates before a market exists are marketing, not math.
• Nothing here is financial advice; the formula is real, the numbers are illustrative.

How wallet drainers actually work

Understanding the mechanics makes the scams obvious:

• Malicious approvals. The fake "claim" button asks you to approve a token allowance to an attacker contract. One signature, and it can move that token any time later. Revoke unused approvals regularly.
• Blind signatures. eth_sign and opaque typed-data requests can authorize transfers you cannot read. If your wallet warns the request is unreadable, stop.
• Permit/Permit2 abuse. Gasless off-chain signatures can grant spending rights without an on-chain transaction, so nothing looks wrong until the drain.
• Address poisoning. Scammers send dust from an address that mimics one you use, hoping you copy it from history later.
• Urgency theater. Countdown timers and "only 2,000 spots left" exist to make you skip verification. Real claim windows last weeks.

Claim-day checklist

Glossary

• TGE — token generation event; the moment the token exists and (usually) lists on exchanges.
• Snapshot — the timestamp when point balances or on-chain state are frozen for allocation math.
• Sybil — one person posing as many accounts to farm multiple allocations; projects cluster wallets by funding patterns to purge them.
• Vesting / cliff — scheduled unlocks; a cliff is a period with zero unlocks before the stream starts.
• FDV — fully diluted valuation: token price times total supply. A "$2B FDV" airdrop with 2% float can still be tiny in real dollars.
• Points meta — the 2023+ pattern of granting off-chain points as deniable pre-token rewards, keeping regulators and expectations flexible.
• Allowance — on-chain permission for a contract to spend your tokens; the thing drainers want.

Famous airdrop patterns worth knowing

• Retroactive surprise (Uniswap 2020): 400 UNI to every past user, no farming possible because nobody knew. Set the template for "use protocols you like, maybe get paid".
• Points-with-dashboard (2023–25 wave): public leaderboards gamify the grind; the transparency recruits users but also invites industrial sybil farms.
• Tiered by depth (Arbitrum 2023): allocation scaled with number of months active, transaction count, and volume - rewarding sustained real use over one-day wallets.
• Anti-sybil clawback (multiple): clustering analysis on funding sources; thousands of wallets funded by one CEX account got zeroed.
• Lockup-boosted: claim 100% vested over a year, or 40% instantly - a real market test of your own discount rate.

Questions to ask before farming anything

1. What does the project gain from my activity - real usage, or just a vanity metric to show VCs?
2. Is the points-to-token conversion published, or is "points" a promise with no denominator?
3. What is the announced community allocation as a percent of supply? Under 5% with heavy VC unlocks is a warning sign.
4. What does farming cost me: gas, opportunity cost of locked capital, bandwidth, time? Divide expected allocation by that cost before starting.
5. If the token never launches, was the activity worth doing anyway? The best farms are things you would use for free.

The dilution lesson, in one formula

Everything above reduces to:

tokens = pool × (your points × (1 + referral)) / total points

• You control the numerator. The crowd controls the denominator. Marketing controls the pool.
• When a program goes viral, total points inflate faster than any individual can farm; early quiet participation beats late grinding.
• Referral bonuses compound the numerator but also grow the denominator via recruits — they are a marketing engine first, a reward second.
• If a project never publishes pool size or total points, any third-party "checker" quoting exact allocations is guessing — or phishing.