Honestly, one of the most popular ways to earn in crypto is when you don't invest anything, and the project itself gives you tokens just for using it. This phenomenon is called a retrodrop.

It all started with Uniswap. I remember in 2021 they released UNI and distributed it to everyone who had ever traded on their platform. The price soared above $40, and people who simply used the exchange suddenly received thousands of dollars. After that, everyone realized: retrodrops really work.

Since then, crypto enthusiasts have caught a fever. Everyone started creating wallets, trading on different DEXes, minting NFTs, hoping that someday the project would say thank you and conduct a retrodrop. And, by the way, expectations are often justified. Although MetaMask never released its token — just rumors, and in the end, nothing.

For projects, retrodrops are a goldmine. They get user activity, score points with investors and exchanges, and spend almost nothing. Funny enough, some projects don’t give anything at all afterward, despite promises.

However, there are nuances. First, transaction fees (especially on Ethereum) can be expensive, so a retrodrop might cost more than it seems. Second, developers usually don’t disclose the conditions in advance, so you never know if you’ll get lucky. And third, the size of the retrodrop can be completely unpredictable — you might get, say, $200 from one project, and only 25 cents from another. Such is the lottery.