How airdrops, where projects give tokens away for free, really work and what a legitimate claim looks like, how to handle trading and records afterwards, and the typical wallet-draining and advance-fee scams that use 'free coins' as bait.
An airdrop is when a blockchain project gives tokens free of charge to wallets or accounts that meet conditions it has set. Projects do it to publicise themselves, reward early users or spread tokens widely. There are three main approaches: distributing to wallets that held a certain coin at a set moment (a snapshot), distributing based on records of actually using a service, and an exchange crediting user accounts as a promotion. In none of them does the recipient pay first.
A legitimate airdrop announces its schedule and eligibility on the project's official website and official social media accounts. If you receive it in a personal wallet, you connect the wallet to the official claim page, check eligibility, sign the claim transaction and pay that transaction's network fee. If it is based on coins held on an exchange, the exchange announces whether it will support it and credits eligible accounts automatically. In no case are you asked to enter your recovery phrase or to send coins to the organisers first.
The most common trick is a fake claim page made to look exactly like the official one. You are lured through search ads, social media replies or messenger links, asked to connect your wallet and then to press 'claim'. What you actually sign is not a transaction that receives tokens but an approval that lets the other party move a particular token from your wallet at will, or a signature with the same effect. One signature can drain the wallet, and because it is a blockchain transaction it cannot be reversed. If the signing request your wallet shows mentions approval or permission, stop, and compare the address character by character with the one on the official account.
Sometimes unknown tokens simply show up in your wallet. A website address in the token name, or a high displayed value, is bait to get you to visit that site to sell or claim. Visiting leads to the same permission theft as a fake claim site. The safe move is to leave such tokens alone and hide them in your wallet. You may also receive tiny amounts from an address whose first and last characters resemble yours. This plants that address in your history so that you copy the wrong one next time you send. Choose destination addresses from a saved address book, not from your transaction history.
'You've won an airdrop; send the fee first and we'll pay out', 'enter your recovery phrase to verify your wallet' and 'this is official support and we'll fix the problem' are all classic scams. They often come as a direct message from an account that looks like an admin in a group chat. Legitimate projects' and exchanges' support teams do not message you first to ask for your recovery phrase or a transfer. The moment someone asks you to send money because you have money coming, assume there is no airdrop.
Airdropped tokens often swing sharply right after listing on an exchange. Many people may sell tokens they got for free on the same day, and early order books are thin, so small orders move the price a lot. This site's CoinRadar Market Radar shows price changes and sharp-move alerts across a Korean won market, and the Volume Spike Scanner shows candles on top Binance coins where trading jumped to several times its usual level, so you can watch how newly listed tokens move. Keep the date you received tokens, that day's market price and the claim transaction record so they can be used for tax later. As of October 2026, Korea's detailed rules on how airdropped coins will be treated once the crypto tax starts are not fully settled, so check announcements from the National Tax Service.
If you think you signed away permissions or entered your recovery phrase, time matters most. Move the remaining assets to a new wallet created on a different device, and revoke the approvals you granted using a block explorer or your wallet's permission manager. If the assets show signs of flowing to an exchange, report it immediately to that exchange and the police; in Korea you can also use the Financial Supervisory Service's reporting channel. People or firms who approach you offering to recover lost coins are mostly running a second scam, so do not pay upfront fees or hand over a recovery phrase.
Legitimate airdrops are announced on official channels and never ask recipients for a recovery phrase or an upfront payment. Permission signatures on fake claim sites, bait tokens dropped into wallets and upfront fee demands are the classic tricks that use 'free' as bait. Keep the market price on the day you receive tokens and the transaction records. This guide explains structure and risk; it does not recommend any project or token and is not investment advice.
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