Game On: The Hottest Upcoming Gaming Token Airdrops

Airdrop season is in full swing, with apps, protocols, and other projects seizing upon signs of an impending bear market to finally drop their tokens—and potentially reward millions of crypto users in the process.

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.

Portal

Portal is undoubtedly one of the buzziest airdrops on the horizon, though it has also been controversial. The multi-chain gaming token, designed to bridge the gap between Web3 games across various blockchains, has incentivized crypto users to earn credit towards the airdrop by creating, sharing, and interacting with Twitter content—which they’ve done en masse.

As obnoxious as that can be, there’s still a lot of hype around what Portal is building. Much of the team comes from the Overlord and Creepz $NFT team at SuperDuper, they’ve recruited a Rockstar Games co-founder and other advisors, and have lined up allies like major talent agency WME and $NFT marketplace Magic Eden.

Portal says the airdrop is coming in January 2024 following a recent presale period and the launch of the latest version of its Crystal Dash airdrop farming experience.

Xai

Xai is a “layer-3” gaming network built on Arbitrum, itself a layer-2 Ethereum scaling network, and it’s set to launch its first airdrop wave in the coming days. The drop was originally planned for December 27, but was delayed a week into early January.

Created in collaboration with Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs, the Xai network will drop its first XAI tokens to owners of certain $NFT projects, along with Sentry node operators that have purchased a Sentry Key. Click here for more on who’s eligible for the XAI airdrop.

Saga Protocol

Saga is a new blockchain network designed primarily for gaming, so it makes sense that the way to potentially earn a share of the upcoming airdrop is by playing games. In December, Saga launched a “play-to-airdrop” campaign across several games running on testnet, with the top leaderboard finishers set to earn a share of SAGA tokens.

In fact, Saga CEO Rebecca Liao told Decrypt’s GG that some players might ultimately earn “double airdrops,” since games may also launch their own tokens and award them to early users. The Saga mainnet is set to go live in spring 2024, with more competitions set to take place in the coming months—and possibly in games on other chains too, Liao teased.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.