I find it dishonest that many people purposely ignored the emphasis on "ONLY." Do I think airdrops can be profitable? Definitely. Are they profitable right now? Not really. People will point to Hyperliquid, Arbitrum, or Uniswap. But let’s be honest, those are exceptions, not the rule. After Arbitrum, how many L2s really cooked? When was the last time we saw a Hyperliquid-level airdrop? Kaito came close, but even that was difficult to game. How many of you got up to 50 yaps in S1 of Kaito? The airdrop landscape has undergone a lot of evolution. We started with signing up on platforms to doing a swap on Uniswap and moved to filling forms in 2020. From there, things took a tweak as more consequential on-chain footprint became a factor. We saw this with Arbitrum and even Aptos where Minting an NFT counted significantly. We've also had $0 testnet campaigns and node running. People made a lot of money from Celestia nodes. There was also the tap tap era on Telegram which worked alongside Referral-based drops. This meta was heavily skewed to favor accounts with large following. Now, we have Kaito which has "shifted" the focus to social contributions. Each wave made airdrops more demanding, and less profitable for the average farmer. One thing I noticed was that it always favored people who had built systems be it Money or Social capital. Node running and on-chain participation (be it testnet or retroactive) aren’t as lucrative as they once were. If you are farming retroactives today, you are better off optimizing for the yields and making the drops a secondary effect. If I understood this during Arbitrum and Zksync days, I'd probably have made banks. We all know the truth, you should be doing more than relying on blind luck. So how do you play with an edge? If you have capital, focus on areas where you can learn, experiment, and stay profitable: prediction markets, futures trading, memes and low-cap plays, yield farming, and asymmetric bets. If you don’t have capital, look to build systems that bring liquidity. I agree that Jobs and businesses in crypto are hard to get but the upside as regards compounding is immense. Focus on skills that matter. Build these skills and connect with established players. These relationships will be essential for credibility. This credibility opens doors that cold outreach never will. Personally, I think the real cheat code is growing your brand. I see too many people chasing the next farmable system. They farmed Kaito, then when Kaito tweaked its algo, they pivoted to Elon’s stimmy. That is not a strategy, it is desperation. I know life is hard, but every decision has tradeoffs. If you invest in building your brand, it will open more doors than any single airdrop ever could. And yes, you can still farm airdrops on the side, but they should never be your foundation. Depending "ONLY" on airdrops is like dropping out of med school in your final year to play the lottery. Time will pass anyway, so you might as well plant seeds that will pay you for years. The people you look up to already paid their dues. That is why it feels like they are playing on easy mode. Do the hard work now, and one day you will unlock your own easy mode. Airdrops should be perks, not your plan.