Similar to GMX and dYdX, Drift is a decentralized exchange (DEX)—primarily for perpetual futures contracts—which has been growing in popularity amongst the crypto community.
And just recently, Drift announced both the formation of a DAO and its token airdrop.
So let's dive right in and explore all you need to know about the Drift DAO and the DRIFT governance token.
Overview
- Project: Drift
- Token ticker: $DRIFT
- Blockchain: Solana
- Sector: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- Business model: Decentralized exchange (DEX)
- Similar projects:
What does Drift do?
Today, Drift is an all-in-one decentralized exchange (DEX) for all your liquidity needs.
Having said that, Drift started out as a pure-play perpetual futures exchange, facilitating the trading of perpetual futures contracts.
A perpetual futures contract is a type of derivative financial instrument that tracks the price of an underlying asset, typically a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Solana. Unlike traditional futures contracts, perpetual futures contracts do not have an expiration date. As such, perpetual futures contracts are often used for leveraged and speculative trading.
After becoming the leader in the derivatives market on Solana, Drift subsequently expanded its product portfolio—allowing for a myriad of trading options and strategies.
Drift products:
- Trade
- Perpetuals
- Spot
- Swap
- Earn
- Lend/Borrow
- Insurance Fund Staking
- Market Maker Rewards
- Drift Liquidity Provider (DLP)
When trading on decentralized exchanges such as Drift, it's crucial you understand the mechanics of perpetual futures contracts, including funding rates, leverage implications, and risk management strategies—so make sure to read up on it as much as possible and only trade with small amounts you feel comfortable losing.
What is the DRIFT token?
Just recently, Drift announced both the formation of a DAO and its token airdrop.
With respect to the DAO, Drift is taking a unqiue approach, as it will consist of 3 branches: a Realms DAO for general protocol development, a Security Council for governing protocol upgrades, and a Futarchy DAO for funding technical grants.
In this context, it can be expected that DRIFT governance token will be used to grant holders voting rights within this multi-branch setup. Basically, this would allow token holders to propose or vote on changes, upgrades, or adjustments to the project's operations.
As Drift is a decentralized exchange, most voting procedures are likely to revolve around which perpetual future markets to list and how to further evolve the risk engine and security guardrails of the protocol.
For more details, head over to the official DRIFT announcement.
How to qualify for the DRIFT airdrop?
Co-founder David Lu has made clear that the team wants to elevate users that have been trading on Drift for more than a year.
Apart from that, it seems as if the overall volume of your Drift trading account will be the deciding factor when it comes to the airdrop allocation.
If you’d like to increase your chances of participating in Drift's airdrop, keep your eyes open for all announcements on the protocol's point program.
How to check your $DRIFT eligibility?
Drift opened the DRIFT airdrop eligibility checker at 10:30am EST on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024. Check your eligibility using only official links from our banners and Explore tab or Drift's official website.
When will the DRIFT airdrop take place?
The good news: both an airdrop and token have been confirmed. The bad news: we don't know when the airdrop will go live.
With that said, we expect the Drift airdrop to function like other ones on Solana. Generally, token rewards aren’t sent directly to your wallet; You must go to a dedicated website to claim them. Drift’s claim page isn’t available yet, but we’ll be sure to share it here, on social media, and via our app if and when it goes live.
⚠️ Beware: During airdrop season, scammers create imitation accounts to trick you into clicking phishing links and wallet drainers. Please exercise caution. Only click on, and visit, links from Drift’s official Twitter account, and do not respond to direct messages from unknown parties related to the Drift airdrop—regardless if you’re on 𝕏 (formerly known as Twitter), Discord, Telegram, or other platforms.
For more, read our Solana Airdrops guide.
How to trade DRIFT with Phantom?
- Notice: You need to hold SOL in your Phantom wallet to complete this process.
If you’re not eligible for a possible Drift airdrop, you can buy, sell, and trade DRIFT tokens with Phantom.
After logging-in to your Phantom browser extension or mobile app, select a wallet that holds the tokens you’d like to trade. Next, click on the swap (arrow) icon at the bottom. In the swap widget, select the token pair you’d like to trade, review the order, then submit!
How to set up a Phantom wallet?
If you’d like a friendly multichain wallet for crypto, DeFi, and NFTs, try us out. We offer browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Brave, and Edge, as well as apps for iOS and Android.
First, download Phantom. Then, create a new wallet.
If you’d like to fund, or send funds to, your Phantom wallet, you can do so via the “Buy” button on your asset tab. We offer various funding options, such as MoonPay, PayPal, and Robinhood to make it easy for you to fund your wallet.
Once you do that, you're ready to go.
How to bridge tokens to Solana with Phantom?
If this is your first time using Solana, you might have most of your assets on other blockchains, such as Ethereum and Polygon. With our Cross-Chain Swapper, you can bridge tokens across Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon right in your Phantom wallet. Here’s how:
Disclaimer: This guide is strictly for educational purposes only and doesn’t constitute financial or legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.
