Crypto Airdrop 2021: What Happened and What You Missed

When you think of crypto airdrop 2021, a wave of free cryptocurrency tokens distributed to early adopters, wallet holders, and community members during a peak period of decentralized finance growth. Also known as free token drops, these campaigns turned ordinary users into early stakeholders overnight. Back then, just holding a wallet or joining a Discord group could earn you tokens from projects like AdEx Network, Metahero, or HappyFans. But not all airdrops were created equal—some gave you real utility, others were just marketing smoke.

DeFi airdrops, a way for decentralized finance platforms to distribute governance tokens to users who interacted with their protocols. Also known as liquidity mining rewards, they fueled the rise of platforms that let you earn by staking, swapping, or lending. Projects like AdEx Network (ADX) used airdrops to bootstrap user adoption before their AI-driven AURA agent even existed. Meanwhile, crypto airdrop scams, fake token distributions designed to steal wallet credentials or trick users into paying gas fees. Also known as rug pull airdrops, they targeted people who didn’t know how to verify legitimacy. HappyFans (HAPPY) raised $1.45 million in its IDO, then vanished. Metahero’s $10 million drop in 2021 looked huge—until you realized most recipients never saw any real use for HERO tokens. And let’s not forget the countless fake airdrops pretending to be from Coinbase, Binance, or Uniswap—none of which ever existed.

What made some airdrops stick while others died?

The winners had one thing: utility. ADX holders got access to real tools that tracked DeFi opportunities. SMH from Spacemesh gave you mining power using spare hard drive space. FLUX rewarded you for sharing unused computing power. These weren’t just hype—they solved actual problems. The losers? Zero team updates, zero trading volume, zero reason to hold. MARGA had zero supply. CVTX crashed 99.98%. BABYDB didn’t even exist. If a token had no function, no team, and no roadmap, it was already dead by 2022.

Today, you can still find traces of those 2021 campaigns—some turned into active tools, others became cautionary tales. The ones that survived? They didn’t rely on hype. They built. The ones that vanished? They sold dreams, not code. In this collection, you’ll find real reviews of what actually happened, how users got burned, and which projects still have legs. No fluff. No guesswork. Just the facts on who got rich, who got scammed, and what you should watch for next time.