In recent years, airdrops have become a standard operation for crypto projects on the eve of their Token Generation Events (TGE). By enticing users with free tokens, project teams hope to build enough hype and user attention before launch. However, the reality is often that projects experience a peak at launch, with hype and prices rapidly declining in a short period. Users tend to sell off their airdropped tokens immediately, leading to pressure on the token market, cooling community enthusiasm, and causing the user base that the project team has just built to collapse.

Although the traffic brought by airdrops can be considerable in the short term, it is difficult to truly convert it into community assets or product users. Most projects lack genuine commercial scenarios to support them, and after the airdrop, they often rely on continued token issuance to maintain user activity, which essentially overdraws future value. Ultimately, most of these tokens and user traffic flow into the arbitrage cycle of "wool-hunters," wasting the resources that truly support project development. The means originally designed to kickstart the ecosystem instead become a burden that weakens the project's vitality.

To break out of this vicious cycle, the conclusion is: projects must become "projects where the wool can come from the pig." The benefits given to users should genuinely be borne by third parties willing to pay. The saying "the wool comes from the pig" refers to platforms providing products or services to users for free, while other market entities foot the bill. In the context of Web3, this means the project team does not profit directly from users but instead provides benefits to users first, with other stakeholders funding the costs, resulting in a win-win for all three parties: users benefit for free, the project expands its influence, and the paying party gains users, data, or brand exposure.

Implementing a Three-Step Method: Building an Ecological Loop

If you are a project team, you might wonder: "I also want others to pay for my users, how can I do that?" I suggest thinking in three steps:

• 1. Define the Core User Group: Clearly define who the most important users for the project are at the current stage. Are they seasoned traders primarily transacting on your platform? Or are they everyday users of your product? Or perhaps investors holding your tokens? In other words, first answer "what kind of user behavior counts as success." Only by identifying the core user group that can truly bring results can subsequent strategies stay on target.

• 2. Uncover Unique Competitive Advantages: Analyze the project's moat and identify advantages that others cannot easily replicate. This could be cutting-edge technological strength (such as robust infrastructure), a large and active user community, unique data assets, etc. Ask yourself: "What unique skills do I have that other projects lack but desperately need?" Only by clarifying your core value can you confidently ask others to pay.

• 3. Find the Paying "Pig": Identify partners who need your resources and are willing to pay. For example, if an exchange or public chain project has strong liquidity, you could collaborate with new projects where they use tokens or funds to purchase opportunities to enter your platform; if you operate a DApp with a large number of active users, other projects wanting users may be willing to pay to conduct airdrops or promotional activities through your channel. In short, whoever lacks your advantages is the one willing to pay, the "pig."

Through these three steps, you can discover that "others provide you resources to benefit your users" is not a fantasy, but a designable business model. Essentially, you are using your core resources to help partners achieve their goals, and partners fund benefits for your users, forming an ecological loop. This allows users to continuously enjoy dividends while also solidifying your ecological stickiness.

Typical Case: Binance's Liquidity Strategy

Taking the world's largest exchange, Binance, as an example, its core advantages are strong liquidity and a large user base. Binance's target users mainly include traders and BNB token holders. It proposes to new projects: willing to exchange tokens or funds for liquidity and exposure opportunities. Binance distributes new project tokens for free to users holding BNB or participating in mining through activities like Alpha airdrops. This approach helps new projects quickly gain user attention and liquidity while providing additional benefits to Binance's loyal users, thereby enhancing the stickiness of BNB holders. The Alpha airdrop targets active users who participate in locking, trading, and providing liquidity, achieving a win-win situation of "users gaining dividends and new projects gaining exposure."

By the way, a common question is: "Why doesn't Binance airdrop to ordinary spot trading users?" The answer is that the trading volume on the main site is largely provided by market makers (MM), who profit from liquidity. Binance needs to retain these core market makers, so it is more willing to reserve airdrop benefits for more small and medium retail users, promoting new projects by expanding a broader user base. This practice aligns with the spirit of "the wool comes from the pig": giving retail users free scratches while the real payers are the project parties needing liquidity and the market-making firms maintaining the market.

Another noteworthy case is the social incentive platform Kaito. Its operational mechanism essentially uses user behavior data and content participation on social media (mainly Twitter) as "assets" to attract traffic, and then collaborates with other crypto projects to distribute these projects' tokens as rewards to content contributors. In this structure, users accumulate points or receive airdrops by "outputting attention and voice," while the real cost of incentives is borne by those new projects hoping to expand their influence through social volume before TGE.

On the surface, this is a typical "the wool comes from the pig" business model: users benefit for free, the Kaito platform meets demand, and project parties pay for the volume. However, this model has obvious structural risks regarding sustainability. Its core reliance is whether Kaito can maintain long-term dominance in the social attention space. If in the future, project parties find more efficient or cost-effective customer acquisition methods, Kaito's value as an "intermediary" will significantly decline.

Cooperation for Win-Win: Core Value Determines Ecological Lifeline

Whether it is a technology-driven project or a community-driven project, the premise is to always maintain your core competitiveness. Once you lose the unique value that makes others willing to pay, this model will not work. The "wool" ultimately relies on the "pig" seeing value and being willing to pay. If you find it difficult to identify your advantages, you should consider adjusting your direction or focusing on areas where you excel.

For project teams, rather than blindly spending money to pump up the market, it is better to think about what resources you have that can be exchanged with others. Find suitable partners and bring external forces into your ecosystem. For example, your strong user community can bring traffic to other new projects, or your unique data resources can help projects make decisions. These are all values that others are willing to pay for with funds or tokens. Once successful, your users enjoy tangible benefits, you strengthen ecological stickiness, and partners achieve their goals—everyone wins.

Investor Perspective: More Focus on Sustainable Empowerment

Now that the hype in the crypto market has subsided and investors are becoming more rational, this is a sign of industry maturity. As an industry observer, I believe that projects capable of long-term survival must either have breakthroughs in technology or product levels (providing long-term value) or innovate in their business models (providing a positive cycle). Projects that can combine both naturally have an advantage.

For investors, the next time you encounter a project boasting loudly, first ask whether it has the ability to generate blood from third parties: can the project truly make the "pig keep flying"? After all, only those cooperative models that allow "pigs to trade daily and sheep never starve" can laugh last in this market.

The idea of "the wool comes from the pig" is not just a slogan, but a feasible strategy guiding project operations. It requires project teams to clarify their own value, design ecological subsidy mechanisms, and jointly build growth with partners.

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