Game On: The Hottest Upcoming Gaming Token Airdrops

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.

Notcoin

Notcoin is a gaming project that runs on messaging app Telegram, and it has racked up over 35 million players who are frantically tapping a shiny coin to mine trillions of Notcoin.

What's the point? Well, it's not a real crypto token yet—but Notcoin plans to mint the token on The Open Network (TON) and offer tokens to players based on the virtual coins they mined in the game. Notcoin says that the on-chain token generation event will take place on or around April 20, which is the same estimated date as the Bitcoin halving—so it's sure to be a busy day.

Nyan Heroes

Solana hero shooter Nyan Heroes, which features cats piloting giant mech suits, is currently holding an early access playtest until April 9 via the Epic Games Store on PC—and it includes a play-to-airdrop campaign.

The Overwatch-like shooter's campaign will award "MEOW" points to users, which will eventually translate into NYAN tokens for eligible early players. Owners of Nyan Heroes NFTs will be eligible for even greater token rewards.

Saga Protocol

Saga is a new blockchain network designed primarily for gaming, so it makes sense that the way users could potentially earn a share of the airdrop was by playing games. Following “play-to-airdrop” campaigns across several games running on testnet, as well as other networks, the SAGA airdrop claim took place from March 6 to March 27 and is now complete.

Nearly 200,000 unique wallets are eligible for the drop, with play-to-airdrop winners alongside people who staked the respective native currencies of Avalanche, Cosmos, Celestia, and Ethereum scaler Polygon in certain timeframes as detailed in the official eligibility guide. The chain has since opened up eligibility to certain NFT communities, including holders of Bored Apes and CryptoPunks.

The Saga mainnet is set for sometime in April and the token generation event should happen in parallel, so keep an eye out for when the actual token goes live. And Saga is launching its own in-house game publisher too, so there's likely to be plenty of action around the chain.

Illuvium

Illuvium is one of the most anticipated crypto gaming franchises, spanning multiple interoperable games—and the team behind them aims to boost adoption amid the upcoming open beta launch by tying in an airdrop campaign.

According to details from the team, Illuvium will reward players with "airdrop points" during the next private beta gameplay period from April 30 to May 28, and then also on the testnet open beta for anyone to play from May 28 until an undetermined date. At some point thereafter, the open beta will launch on mainnet and continue to award airdrop points to players.

Illuvium already has an ILV governance token, so it's unclear whether the project plans to hand out ILV itself or perhaps roll out a separate play-to-earn token within its ecosystem. Either way, the team said in a press release that the airdrop will be collectively valued at $25 million or more.

BlockGames

BlockGames is the latest gaming platform to turn to Twitter (aka X) to build momentum for its token launch, akin to Portal and its own aggressive airdrop farming campaign. The mobile-centric gaming platform is incentivizing users to share and interact with BlockGames content on Twitter in an effort to earn BLOCK tokens ahead. The SocialFi campaign is hard to miss if you're on Crypto Twitter.

Nifty Island

Launched in open beta in January, Nifty Island is a 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.

Upland

Long-running metaverse game Upland, which lets you buy property and play in locales based on real-world cities, is set to launch an Ethereum token tied to its in-game Sparklet coin, finally letting players take their earned value out of the game.

In the run-up to the Ethereum token launch, the EOS-based game is beginning its "Share and Build" campaign, tapping into similar strategies as Portal and BlockGames by incentivizing users to spread the word across social media.

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.

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.

BloodLoop

BloodLoop, an Overwatch-esque 5v5 hero shooter running on Avalanche, debuted its play-to-airdrop campaign on March 4. Over the course of three months, players will be able to test out the game and potentially earn a share of millions of BLS tokens via weekly competitions.

You'll have to play some amount of the game, though, as BloodLoop's Twitter account says you'll need to complete quests on a "battle pass" to unlock airdrop eligibility. Over 250,000 players have reportedly signed up already, making this a potentially buzzy one to watch, but it's unclear when to expect the game to go live.

AI Arena

AI Arena, a game that pairs Super Smash Bros-style brawling with artificial intelligence smarts, just completed 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.

Following the conclusion of the latest play-to-airdrop competition wave, AI Arena's developers are sorting through the data before the token drops.

Elixir Games

Crypto gaming launcher Elixir Games is gearing up to drop its token after raising $14 million in funding from investors like Square Enix and the Solana Foundation, and it's offering $750,000 worth of rewards through a "season pass" campaign that kicks off on April 4.

According to the teaser trailer embedded in this tweet, the campaign will include "daily airdrops" along with competitions across 12 games, and there's ELIX token imagery all over the clip.

WUFFI

The WAX blockchain has been promoting the upcoming airdrop for a "gaming meme coin" called WUFFI, albeit with the token name WUF, which has also been expanded to Solana.

WUF took a snapshot of eligible holders on January 31 ahead of an eventual first airdrop wave, and now the token claim is set to take place on both chains on April 8. Numerous WAX games and apps have pledged to support the incoming token.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

Editor's note: This story was originally published on December 27, 2023 and was last updated with new info on April 2.