Blockchain platforms attempt to expand their user base by awarding tokens to users, a practice known as issuing airdrops. Empirical data and related work implies that previous airdrops fall short of their stated aim of attracting long-term users, partially due to adversarial farmers who game airdrop mechanisms and receive an outsize share of rewards. In this work, we argue that given the futility of fighting farmers, the airdrop business model should be reconsidered: farmers should be harnessed to generate activity that attracts real users, i.e., strengthens network effects. To understand the impact of farmers on airdrops, we analyze their performance in a market inhabited by two competing platforms and two tiers of users: real users and farmers. We show that counterintuitively, farmers sometimes represent a necessary evil-it can be revenue-optimal for airdrop issuers to give some tokens to farmers, even in the hypothetical case where platforms could costlessly detect and banish all farmers. Although we focus on airdrops, our results generally apply to activity-based incentive schemes.

翻译：区块链平台试图通过向用户发放代币来扩大其用户基础，这种做法被称为空投。实证数据及相关研究表明，以往的空投未能实现其吸引长期用户的既定目标，部分原因在于存在对抗性的农场主，他们利用空投机制获取了不成比例的奖励份额。本文认为，鉴于对抗农场主的徒劳性，应重新审视空投商业模式：应利用农场主创造吸引真实用户的活动，即增强网络效应。为理解农场主对空投的影响，我们分析了其在由两个竞争平台和两类用户（真实用户与农场主）构成的市场中的表现。研究表明，反直觉的是，农场主有时代表一种必要的恶——即使在平台能够零成本检测并驱逐所有农场主的假设情形下，向农场主分配部分代币对空投发行方而言仍可能是收益最优的选择。尽管本研究聚焦于空投，但所得结论普遍适用于基于活动的激励方案。