A retrospective of eight major airdrops shows just how punitive selling at TGE actually was for almost every recipient except one. The dataset compares the median wallet's claim-day value against its value today.
Hyperliquid's HYPE is the clear outlier. The median HYPE allocation grew from $130 at claim to roughly $4,700, about a 35x return. UNI sat roughly flat after six years, ending at $1,300 from a $1,200 baseline.
The rest of the field bled out hard. APT drifted from $1,100 to $90. OP from $380 to $25. ARB from $1,300 to $85. APE from $80,000 to $1,500. STRK from $1,000 to $15. DYDX from $3,700 to $37. Seven of eight projects handed holders drawdowns between 85% and 99%.
Why it matters
The numbers skew the textbook "sell the airdrop" heuristic. Most retail recipients of these distributions were better off liquidating at claim, often by an order of magnitude. APE holders alone lost roughly $78,500 on the median allocation.
The HYPE result complicates the picture rather than refutes it. A 35x return on the median allocation is significant, but the sample size of one genuine outlier does not overturn the base rate across seven bleeding distributions.
Market impact
For farmers running multi-airdrop strategies, the data reframes the TGE decision from an emotional one into a probability call. Selling at TGE captures an asset whose expected drift over months is sharply negative, with a small chance of a Hyperliquid-style rerating baked in.
Source: [source](http://telegraph.controller.bot/files/8336652911/AgACAgIAAxkBAAJDJWpfjlQiaYB7i7cKf-NE8-H6VbZFAAIVF2sbuF8BS78xRI_tVYUuAQADAgADeQADPQQ)
Frequently asked questions
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Which airdrop performed the best after TGE in this data?
Hyperliquid's HYPE was the only major distribution that rerated substantially. The median allocation grew from $130 at claim to roughly $4,700, about a 35x return.
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Which airdrops lost the most value after TGE?
APE drew down the most in absolute terms, with the median allocation falling from $80,000 to $1,500. DYDX (97%), STRK (97%), and ARB (94%) posted the deepest percentage drawdowns.
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Did UNI hold its value after the airdrop?
Roughly flat. The median UNI allocation ended at about $1,300, compared with $1,200 at TGE, after roughly six years of holding.
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Is selling airdrops at TGE always the right call?
This dataset says yes on average, but HYPE shows the rule has outliers. Seven of eight distributions lost between 85% and 99% of claim-day value, while one rerated ~35x.
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How was the airdrop performance measured?
By the median wallet's claim-day USD value versus current USD value across eight major airdrop distributions, with each median computed from the allocations most wallets actually received.
TheBlock
WatcherGuru
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