DeFi farmers boast about gaming dYdX airdrop as prices surge

As dYdX’s governance token gains amid speculation that Chinese traders could be migrating to the derivatives DEX, savvy DeFi farmers are claiming to be sitting on six-figure stashes after gaming the protocol’s recent airdrop.

DYDX has gained 85% in two days as reports claim that China’s crypto traders are converging on the decentralized margin trading protocol as Beijing moves to further crack down on digital assets.

The exchange’s governance token was airdropped to users on Sept. 8. As the number of tokens received by users was determined by historic trading activity on the exchange, news of the airdrop drove a flurry of activity as farmers flocked to the platform to capitalize on the free tokens.

With DYDX tokens currently trading at $21 and its market capitalization surpassing $1 billion, many airdrop recipients have made off with significant profits.

Some users have taken to Twitter to boast of their airdrop earnings, describing how they sought to game the protocol by trading the same assets on the platform between multiple wallets under their control to qualify for hundreds of thousands worth of rewards.

My free $DYDX airdrop is worth $900,000. Good morning.

— Carter (@moneywithcarter) September 23, 2021

Twitter user Daniel Que tweeted that their airdrop is “worth $420K now,” noting that he would have been excluded from the event if he were still residing in the United States

“Moving to Taiwan (and not getting a Green Card) was a good call,” he said.

Others were not so lucky, with many users complaining about having been “protected” from the airdrop by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

7/ The SEC now wants to use this same system to “protect” you from crypto. If you were one of the many Americans “protected” from @dydxprotocol ‘s $1 billion airdrop, it’s because dydx doesn’t report information to the SEC like a company from the 1980s.

— myss3lium industri3s (@mysselium) September 27, 2021

Related: Derivatives DEX dYdX beats out Coinbase’s spot markets by volume amid China FUD

DYdX has seen impressive fundamental growth this year, with derivatives volume gaining 2,583% over a 3 month period since June 30. On Sept. 27, the margin trading DEX’s daily volume outpaced that of leading U.S. spot exchange Coinbase for the first time.

The total value locked on the platform has just hit an all-time high of $503 million according to L2beat, which ranks it as the second-largest layer-two network by total value locked (TVL) behind Arbitrum. The exchange currently represents 20% of all second-layer TVL.