Given the abundance of new NFT projects, and established projects minting new collectibles, users are naturally searching for ways to partake in free NFT drops.
Since the NFT space is now saturated with a large number of projects, finding free NFT drops can be hard even for experienced users, not to mention newcomers. In this article, we’ll show you how to find upcoming NFT collection drops and get free NFT drops.
Key highlights:
- Some projects are looking to distinguish themselves in the saturated NFT sector by dropping their NFTs for free.
- While most free NFT drops never amount to much, some projects that distributed their NFTs have achieved significant success (CryptoPunks, Goblintown, Loot).
- You can find upcoming free NFT drops using an NFT calendar platform.
What are NFT drops?
An NFT drop (also known as NFT airdrop) is an event in which a digital asset, usually in the form of a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of art or collectible, is made available for purchase using cryptocurrency. The term “drop” refers to the way in which the NFT is released for sale, often in limited quantities and for a specific period of time.
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NFT drops are typically organized by the artist or creator of the digital asset, and may take place on a dedicated website or platform specifically designed for buying and selling NFTs. Many NFT drops are highly sought after and can generate significant interest and demand from collectors and enthusiasts of digital art and collectibles.
NFT drops vary greatly in terms of collection size (supply), price of items, and NFT rarity. While some NFT collections, especially those by prominent artists or companies, can reach sky-high high valuations, there are also NFTs that can be claimed free of charge (apart from network fees, obviously).
How to find free NFT drops?
There are various ways of finding information about free mint NFT drops, ranging from NFT markets and social media platforms to Instant Messaging channels and NFT calendars. Let’s explore each method in more detail.
NFT marketplaces
One of the easiest ways of discovering upcoming NFTs is to visit virtually any NFT marketplace. Typically, they list upcoming projects in a separate section that allows users to filter through upcoming NFT drops using various criteria, like the blockchain they are on, category, and more.
NFT markets come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The first category, mass marketplaces, includes significant cryptocurrency marketplaces like GameStop NFT, OpenSea, Axie Infinity Marketplace, Rarible, and Nifty Gateway. These websites host a wide range of NFT collections, including ones related to sports, trading cards, digital art, and even virtual reality.
Social Media
Twitter is the leading communications channel for most NFT projects. To find out more about the next drops, you can also visit other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others. Make sure that you follow NFT markets and project teams and other influential people in the NFT community to be updated in case of any free NFT giveaways.
Instant Messaging Channels
You can also take advantage of instant messaging services like Discord and Telegram. In the message groups, you are very likely to hear people discussing NFT drops. with very low floor prices, and even free ones are not uncommon. However, due to the private manner of discussions taking place via IMs, you must be especially diligent about avoiding individuals that are promising things that are too good to be true.
NFT calendars
NFT calendars are one of the best ways to stay informed amount new drops on the Ethereum blockchain and other popular decentralized networks for NFTs like Solana and Polygon. The dates and times of each NFT drop are listed on NFT calendars, as well as a countdown that users can use to keep track of how many drops are left till the collection is online. Also, most NFT calendars offer the possibility for users to filter by free NFTs.
Step-by-step guide on how to get free NFT drops
For the purposes of this guide, we’ll examine how NFT calendars can be used to find free NFT drops. We’ll be using NFT Drops Calendar. Keep in mind that most NFT calendars offer a similar feature set, which means that you can follow steps below pretty much on any NFT calendar platform.
Step 1: Find a website that lists free NFT drops
Find a trusted website that offers free NFT drops, like NFT Drops Calendar. Conversely, you can use the service that you prefer and get pretty similar results. The important thing to note is to use a website that allows upcoming NFT drops to be filtered by price and blockchain.
Step 2: Sort by mint price (low to high)
After finding a reliable website, you should sort the prices from low to high. This means that free NFT collections will appear first.
Step 3: Find “free mint” NFT projects
For free NFT drops, choose the ones that have a “FREE MINT” written next to them. While it may be called something else on different NFT calendar sites, virtually all of them have a feature that prominently showcases free NFTs.
Step 4: Select the project to participate in
The final thing to do is to research the information provided and decide on which one to participate in the NFT drop. This is the crucial part to do since you can not afford to risk your stake without full knowledge of what you are about to do with your stake.
The most successful projects that started with a free NFT drop
To be frank, most projects that conduct free NFT drops never gain much traction and are quickly forgotten. However, there have been some very impressive success stories from projects that distributed their NFTs through free drops.
CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks is arguably the most influential NFT project of all-time, as it single-handedly started the “PFP” or profile picture genre of NFTs. This NFT collection was launched in June of 2017 with a free drop. Anyone who had an Ethereum address and was willing to pay the associated gas fee could mint a CryptoPunk NFT with no additional costs.
There are a total of 10,000 CryptoPunks NFTs, and each CryptoPunk avatar was generated automatically based on a pre-determined set of traits. Some features are rarer than others, and CryptoPunks sporting the rarest traits (for example the “Alien” traits) can sell for upwards of a million dollars.
While the price of CryptoPunks has seen significant fluctuations in the last few years, they are still a highly coveted status symbol in the Ethereum community. The “cheapest” CryptoPunk currently on the market is selling for a whopping 55.7 ETH (about $132,000 at the time of writing).
Loot
Loot is a unique NFT project that represents virtual gear used in role-playing games. While the vast majority of NFT collections focus on visual presentation, the Loot project opted for a very minimalist approach. Loot NFTs are simply a list of 8 pieces of virtual gear. The contents of each Loot bag were generated randomly, with some items appearing more frequently than others.
Users are encouraged to utilize Loot NFTs in any way they please, for example by incorporating them into blockchain-powered role playing games, making visual representations of items included in Loot bags, and so forth.
While the enthusiasm for Loot has cooled off significantly since the project’s launch, the original collection still maintains a very respectable floor price of 0.43 ETH at the time of writing.
Goblintown
Goblintown is an NFT project that went live with a free drop and quickly attracted a lot of attention to the collection’s grotesque art style and the project’s unconventional marketing which often incorporates toilet humor and nonsensical messages.
At its peak, the floor price of the Goblintown collection climbed higher than 5 ETH, although it has since declined significantly to about 0.18 ETH. Still, those who participated in the Goblintown free NFT drop certainly had the opportunity to make a very nice profit.
Final Thoughts – Don’t expect to get rich from free NFTs
While free NFT drops can be a great way to become a part of the community, free NFTs rarely explode in value, so don’t get your hopes up too early. However, there are exceptions. For instance, several collectibles from Crypto Punks, an NFT collection that was initially distributed for free, reached million-dollar valuations later on. In February, the most expensive “Crypto Punk” was sold for a staggering 8000 ETH, worth well over $23 million at the time.
In the end, it’s impossible to predict which NFTs will skyrocket and which ones will perform poorly, so it’s best to keep the expectations low. In the meantime, you can check the best crypto airdrop sites to find the best NFT and other crypto airdrop deals.
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