The disappointing history of XRP airdrops

Hoping to attract organic activity, airdrops were once a popular way to kick-start adoption for new crypto networks. XRP was especially attractive due to its ultra-low transaction costs.

When the SEC sued Ripple in December 2020 for conducting an unregistered securities sale, several XRP-friendly airdrops were quickly launched.

Fearing that the US government would shut down the XRP Ledger, win a grueling financial settlement against Ripple, or otherwise inhibit growth in the industry, many projects saw early 2021 as the last chance to launch a successful airdrop campaign to XRP. token holders.

However, most of the airdrops’ social media accounts from that era no longer exist or have become inactive. Some bills claimed support a good cause; others used a celebrity’s image — possibly without permission — or used suspicious marketing tactics.

Flare (FLR) airdrop

The largest airdrop in XRP history was Flare. It took a snapshot of the XRP network in December 2020 — the same month the SEC filed its lawsuit. It intended to reward XRP holders with its 1:1 FLR airdrop.

After a two-year wait, Flare finally performed its airdrop in January 2023. Specifically, Flare dropped 4.28 billion FLR, allocating 1 token for every 1 XRP held, as of the December 2020 snapshot.

Flare opened to trade north of $0.04 and initially appeared to be a $170 million market cap “gift” to the XRP community. In reality, FLR immediately plummeted as airdrop recipients sold their gifts at any cost.

The price of FLR never recovered. Today it is trading 90% below its first day of trading.

Even worse, Flare has been steadily diluting FLR’s offerings; original holders have diluted from 4.28 billion to 18.9 billion FLR tokens in circulation.

Initially, Flare planned to build a DeFi app using XRP, but turned to a Layer 1 blockchain and oracle network. Google queries for XRP FLR peaked in January 2021 – shortly after Flare’s snapshot – and again in January 2023 during Flare’s airdrop. Today, interest in this question is once again languishing near lows.

Other airdrops to XRP holders

Most XRP airdrops are new projects looking for a bit of promotion. An XRPL validator called xpmarket launched in January 2022 and offered an XPcoin airdrop to anyone who logged into its website or scanned a code using the Xumm app.

That airdrop flopped and is now worth $0, according to its own website.

XRP Healthcare

XRP Healthcare’s planned roadmap promised to release its token (XRPH) and independent XRPH wallets in Q4 2022. joined Twitter in September 2022.

The earliest available price data indicates that on February 10, 2023, XRPH was trading at a high of $0.228 and a low of $0.18.

The price history of the token indicates an all-time high of nearly 30 cents on March 9, 2023.

On July 3, 2023, it hovered around $0.044 and had a fully diluted valuation of $4,454,002. XRP Healthcare has capped XRPH’s supply at 100 million tokens.