46% of airdropped tokens achieved ATH (all-time high) within the first two weeks. For certain airdropped tokens, users may consider holding them for long-term value appreciation, which can yield higher returns in favorable market conditions. This article is sourced from Nicholas Boey’s article “When Is the Best Time to Sell Airdrops?” on Coingecko, compiled, translated, and written by PANews.
Table of Contents
When is the best time to sell airdropped tokens?
Market conditions driving returns
2023 and 2024: Bullish sentiment returning?
Airdrops are increasingly popular, but should users sell or hold after receiving them? Does the conclusion differ in different market environments? Coingecko analyzed the price performance of the top 50 airdropped tokens and their performance after the airdrops.
Note: This report analyzed the number of days required for airdrops to reach peak returns from January 1, 2020, to February 20, 2024. Short-term peak returns refer to the highest price returns within the first 14 days after the airdrop.
Among the top 50 largest airdrops, 23 tokens (46%) achieved their all-time high within two weeks after the airdrop. This suggests that the best time to sell airdropped tokens to maximize profits may be within the first 14 days after receiving them.
The airdropped tokens that achieved the highest prices in the short term include ENS (73% peak return on the second day of trading), X2Y2 (121% on the second day), Blur (90% on the sixth day), LooksRare (192% on the tenth day), and ArbDoge AI (425% on the fourteenth day).
In recent airdrop performances, Jito (43% on the second day), Wen (37% on the third day), Dymension (75% on the tenth day), Manta (72% on the twelfth day), and Heroes of Mavia (217% on the thirteenth day) achieved significant returns. Although it remains to be seen whether these recent tokens, which have only been traded for a few weeks, will reach new highs, users can profit the most by selling shortly after receiving the airdrop.
Among these 23 airdropped tokens, 16 reached peak returns within 2-14 days after the airdrop. In other words, once airdropped tokens are distributed and trading begins, user interest in them increases rapidly. This confirms that airdrops are an effective marketing or growth strategy, but also indicates that interest in specific tokens often grows after the airdrop and reaches a peak shortly after, reflected in the token’s price.
The prices of the remaining 7 tokens peaked on the day of the airdrop and subsequently could not recover. For example, the airdropped token (JUP) of Solana ecosystem aggregator Jupiter started trading at around $0.66 but then dropped by 28% and is still below its initial price. This situation occurs when users are eager to profit from the airdrop, leading to immediate selling of the airdropped tokens. As more users decide to sell, the prices of these tokens face significant selling pressure and continue to decline.
On the other hand, among the 50 airdropped tokens, 27 reached peak returns after two weeks of the airdrop, ranging from 15 days to 581 days. The longer time range for peak prices is usually consistent with favorable market conditions and the development of individual projects, pushing the prices of airdropped tokens beyond their initial levels.
38% of airdropped tokens reached new highs during the crypto bull market in 2021. Among the 50 airdropped tokens, 19 tokens (38%) achieved their all-time high. All of these tokens were launched in 2021 or earlier, indicating that market conditions drove these tokens to higher prices.
Among these 19 tokens, 4 reached ATH more than 100 days after the airdrop. These tokens are Uniswap (1145% return), 1inch (216% return), Gitcoin (242% return), and Bank (94% return).
Compared to the short-term peak returns after trading begins, these tokens achieved higher returns with their ATH prices. For example, Uniswap’s “long-term” ATH price return is 1145%, more than 10 times its short-term peak return of 106%.
This suggests that for certain airdropped tokens, users may consider holding them for the long term to realize value appreciation and achieve higher returns in favorable market conditions.
2022: A good year for NFT airdrops, but not for other projects. In 2022, a relatively bearish year for the crypto market, only 11 out of the 50 airdropped tokens reached ATH. However, there was a bull market for NFTs at the beginning of 2022, which pushed 3 out of the 11 airdropped tokens (ApeCoin, LooksRare, and X2Y2) to new highs. On the other hand, the other tokens that reached ATH in 2022 were launched in the same year and reached ATH shortly after the airdrop. The only exception is Osmosis, which was launched in June 2021 but reached ATH in 2022.
These data suggest that during a bear market, it is the best time to sell after receiving the airdrop to maximize profits.
With the approval of a Bitcoin ETF in the United States, bullish sentiment is returning. Among the 50 airdropped tokens, 21 reached ATH in 2023 and 2024.
Among these 21 tokens, 8 reached ATH more than 100 days after the airdrop. These tokens are Arbitrum (68% peak return), Bonk (28,091% return), Celestia (777% return), Optimism (186% return), Aptos (34% return), WorldCoin (249% return), Arkham (67% return), and Maverick (38% return).
Another 5 tokens took 15-100 days to reach their peak prices, while the remaining 8 tokens reached ATH within 14 days after the airdrop. (Note that among the 8 tokens that reached ATH within 14 days, 5 were recent airdrops: Manta, Jupiter, Dymension, Heroes of Mavia, and Wen).
This indicates that the market sentiment will change in 2024, and holding may yield higher profits when airdropped tokens reach new highs in the expected bull market.
The following are the number of days, weeks, or years required for the top 50 airdropped tokens to reach their all-time high prices as of February 20, 2024, along with the corresponding percentage of peak price returns.
(Images are provided in the original article)
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