Do You Own Bitcoin? How to Claim Your "Free Money" From These Altcoins [in Journals]
In an attempt to gain traction in the ever-growing space of digital currency and blockchain technology, a handful of cryptocurrencies have taken a nontraditional approach towards getting noticed.
The twenty highest market capitalization cryptocurrencies represent less than two-and-a-half percent of the total number of digital currencies in circulation. With a staggering 847 cryptocurrencies in circulation, getting noticed can pose a great challenge. And for some token developers, attracting new users means distributing their virtual tokens – for free.
Introduce the "Airdrop".
The Bitcoin platform alone accounts for over fifty-percent of the total over 139 billion cryptocurrency market capitalization and represents tens of millions of users worldwide. The Bitcoin platform holds the single largest cryptocurrency user-base. For this reason, newer token developers are taking aim at this user-base, in hopes of luring Bitcoin-users to try their platform.
The strategy ensures a wide distribution, and competent user-base, which is already accustomed to using cryptocurrency – ensuring less headwind in the newer tokens adoption.
This is where Stellar Lumens¹ and Byteball² are trying to gain headway. And this isn't the first time they have done so.
Catching attention.
As early as October 2016, Stellar launched their first ever airdrop, which gave away 19 billion Lumens (XLM) to Bitcoin holders at that time. At that time, one Stellar Lumen had an average market price of two-and-a-half cents ($0.025), making Stellar's airdrop worth 475 million dollars at that time.
Stellar's second airdrop has launched on June 27th and will give away 16 billion Stellar Lumens to Bitcoin holders until August 27th of this year.
Stellar took a snapshot of the blockchain at the first block mined after midnight on June 26th, which recorded all bitcoin balances at the time. At the time of the snapshot, there were 16,215,950 bitcoins in existence. The 16 billion Lumen reward is then accredited in proportion percentage of bitcoin one held at that time – roughly amounting to 986.683 Stellar Lumen per one Bitcoin held, with no minimum. At the monthly average price for Stellar, this amounts to approximately $20 per Bitcoin held.
To claim the free tokens, users must set up a Stellar account and sign a message from their Bitcoin wallet to prove ownership of the address within the time-frame given, as well authenticate through Facebook.¹
"Byte-What?"
Byteball (GBYTE), currently trailing one behind Stellar Lumens (XLM), is the twenty-third highest market capitalized cryptocurrency, and another token platform which is freely distributing it's tokens to Bitcoin holders. It is currently trading at a market value that is nearly eighty-percent lower than last month – perhaps as a result of selling from the previous airdrop, or distribution, and the seventh of what is to be nine distributions on September 6th this year.
Similar to Stellar, the tokens are distributed in proportion to the token-holders Bitcoin holdings. Once the wallet is installed, the Bitcoin balance must be verified by making a micropayment or signing a message and sending the information by "chatting with" ByteBall's Transition Bot.
Less straightforward to the end-user are the token rewards:
This translates to one GB being equivalent to one Byteball (GBYTE) – with a current market value of approximately $320 – which equates to about $20 per Bitcoin held of the token; strikingly similar to the distributed value per Bitcoin of the Stellar giveaway.
The End Game
The future of these digital tokens remains to be seen, but with XLM and GBYTE each having a market capitalization of close to two-hundred million, it can be observed that a significant proportion of users do hold the tokens. Whether this is a result of the distribution model or due to other factors such as their trade-ability or actual utility is of question.
For holders of Bitcoin, the lure of claiming "free money" from lesser-known coins is easy – and the choice to sell, trade, or hold the coin ultimately does drive traffic into the platform.
Images courtesy of Stellar and Byteball
Links to the free token distributions:
¹Stellar Distribution
²Byteball Distribution
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