What Is Eligibility Criteria?

Eligibility Criteria are the hard requirements that determine whether your wallet qualifies to receive an airdrop. Projects set these rules before announcing distributions to ensure tokens go to actual users rather than reward farming bots or speculators.

Common eligibility criteria include:

• Holding a minimum token balance at snapshot time (e.g., Arbitrum required holding ARB before its November 2023 snapshot)
• TVL thresholds in a protocol's smart contracts (Uniswap's 2023 airdrop required LP activity)
• Transaction volume or trading activity (Hyperliquid tracks volume and open interest for perpetual trading rewards)
• Testnet participation before mainnet launch (projects often airdrop to testnet users who stress-tested their networks)
• Time-based requirements like holding for 90+ days before a snapshot to prevent last-minute whale accumulation
• Network specificity (some airdrops only reward Arbitrum users, excluding Ethereum mainnet holders of the same token)

Projects use eligibility criteria to prevent sybil-attacks where one person controls multiple wallets to claim multiple times. Stricter criteria also discourage pure airdrop farmers who chase every drop without genuine protocol engagement. For example, Jito's MEV rewards required consistent validator participation—casual users couldn't just deposit SOL and claim.

Why this matters for airdrop farming: Your entire strategy depends on knowing eligibility before the snapshot. If you don't meet the criteria, you get nothing. This is why farmers track protocol activity months in advance—if a Layer 2 might airdrop, farmers begin bridging assets and trading there to satisfy potential holding or activity requirements. Missing a single criterion, even if you nail the others, disqualifies you completely.

Always audit eligibility criteria on the official project site or verified announcements. Scammers often fake airdrops with impossible-to-meet criteria to harvest wallet approvals and private keys.