Is it still worth it for small investors?

A few years ago, airdrops were still a rarity in the crypto market, with first-time users of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) apps being rewarded with unexpected token gifts. Well-known examples of this are DeFi projects such as Uniswap, dYdX or 1inch. Users who interacted with these projects early on, even once, during their early stages were richly rewarded through token airdrops of UNI, DYDX, and 1INCH. In the past, such airdrops enabled not only large investors to make significant profits, but also small investors. More recently, airdrops from crypto projects such as Celestia or the Solana DeFi protocols Jito and Jupiter have shown that newer airdrop initiatives can also be very profitable.

However, it is now becoming apparent that the time for simple airdrops is over. Criteria are becoming more and more demanding and it is becoming increasingly difficult, especially for small investors, to qualify for lucrative airdrops. Airdrops such as Tensor, Parcl, Kamino or EigenLayer have often disappointed small investors in particular in recent months. The question therefore arises as to whether the hype surrounding airdrops for small investors is now over or whether it is still worthwhile to speculate on airdrops even with a small budget.