SXP Airdrop by Solar: How the CoinMarketCap Learn & Earn Campaign Worked and What It Meant for Users

On October 26, 2023, Solar Network launched a targeted airdrop through CoinMarketCap - not to give away free money, but to force a shift in how people used SXP. The goal? Get users off Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain and onto Solar’s own blockchain. And it worked. Over 5,000 people got exactly 10 SXP each - 50,000 tokens total - but only if they jumped through very specific hoops. This wasn’t a typical airdrop where you just connect your wallet and collect. This was a test. A test of whether people would learn, adapt, and move their activity to a new network.

What Was the Solar SXP Airdrop?

The Solar (SXP) airdrop wasn’t just a giveaway. It was a migration tool. Solar used to be Swipe, a company that let you spend crypto via debit cards. But in early 2023, they shut down that side of the business and rebuilt SXP as a full Layer-1 blockchain. That meant the old ERC-20 and BEP-20 versions of SXP were no longer the main thing. The real SXP now lived on Solar’s own network, secured by 53 Block Producers using Delegated Proof of Stake. The airdrop was the first big push to get people to use it.

CoinMarketCap partnered with Solar to run a "Learn & Earn" campaign. You didn’t just sign up. You had to study. You had to pass a quiz about Solar’s technology - what it could do, how it worked, why it mattered. Then you had to create a brand-new wallet on the Solar mainnet. Not your MetaMask. Not your Binance wallet. A wallet generated through Solar’s official desktop app (version 2.0.1). And you had to use a CoinMarketCap account that was at least 30 days old. No bots. No fake accounts. No shortcuts.

Why Did Solar Do This?

Most crypto projects give away tokens to attract attention. Solar wanted something harder to fake: mainnet adoption. If you already held SXP on Ethereum, you couldn’t join. That cut off 87% of potential participants, according to Bitget’s analysis. It was a bold move. They weren’t trying to make people rich. They were trying to make their blockchain useful.

Industry experts saw it differently. John Wu from Ava Labs called it "bold but necessary" - if you’re launching your own chain, you need real users on it, not just token holders on someone else’s. But blockchain security researcher Dr. Sarah Jamie Lewis warned that skipping KYC made the campaign vulnerable to sybil attacks. Her team estimated up to 40% of applicants might have been duplicate accounts, based on how fast people joined Solar’s Telegram group after the announcement.

Still, the numbers tell a clearer story. Over 12,400 people got disqualified just because their CoinMarketCap account was under 30 days old. Another 17% failed to generate a valid mainnet address - they kept mixing up testnet and mainnet. That’s not user error. That’s a sign that most people still didn’t understand how blockchains work. Solar didn’t care about easy wins. They cared about people who could actually use the system.

How to Participate (Step by Step)

If you’d been trying to join in October 2023, here’s exactly what you had to do:

1. Have a CoinMarketCap account older than 30 days. If you created it last week? You were out.
2. Download the official Solar Desktop Wallet (v2.0.1) from solar.org/desktop-wallet. No third-party sites.
3. Open the app and create a new mainnet wallet. Don’t import an old one. Don’t use a wallet from another chain.
4. Copy your Solar mainnet wallet address - it starts with "sxp1" - and paste it into the CoinMarketCap airdrop form.
5. Complete the 10-question quiz on Solar’s blockchain, tokenomics, and use cases. You could retake it up to three times.
6. Join Solar’s Telegram and Discord channels. While not officially required, users who joined at least 72 hours before submitting had higher success rates.

The whole process took 25 to 35 minutes for someone familiar with crypto wallets. For beginners? It could take hours - and many still failed. One Reddit user, u/CryptoNewbie2023, said they got their 10 SXP in just two days - faster than the promised 14-day window. Another, u/AirdropHunter88, got disqualified because their account was 25 days old. The rules weren’t hidden, but they weren’t shouted from the rooftops either.

What Happened After the Airdrop?

By November 10, 2023, all 5,000 winners had received their 10 SXP tokens. On-chain data confirmed it. But the real win wasn’t the $1.00 value of the tokens at the time. It was the network effect.

Solar went from having a few hundred active mainnet wallets to over 15,000 after the campaign. That’s what analyst Michael Hyldgaard from CoinPedia called the "true value" - not the tokens, but the new users learning to stake, send, and interact with the chain. The airdrop didn’t just hand out tokens. It handed out onboarding.

User feedback was mixed. The desktop wallet got a 3.7/5 rating on Trustpilot. People liked the clean interface for staking, but complained it took 22 minutes on average to sync the blockchain for the first time. Support was decent - Discord’s #airdrop-support channel had 7 moderators and responded in under 10 minutes during business hours.

How It Compared to Other Airdrops

In Q4 2023, airdrops were everywhere. Aptos and Sui gave away millions in tokens. zkSync handed out $500 per person. Solar gave $1. But here’s the difference:

Comparison of Q4 2023 Airdrops

Project	Token Value per Winner	Wallet Requirement	Learning Component	Primary Goal
Solar (SXP)	$1.00	New mainnet wallet only	Yes - mandatory quiz	Drive mainnet adoption
Aptos	$50-$100	Any compatible wallet	No	General user growth
zkSync	$500	Any wallet with past activity	No	Reward early adopters
Emerging DeFi projects	$0.10-$0.50	Any wallet	Occasional	Low-cost marketing

Solar’s approach was the only one that treated the airdrop like a training program. Others wanted users. Solar wanted competent users.

What’s Next for Solar and SXP?

The airdrop wasn’t the end. It was a starting line. Solar’s roadmap, updated in November 2023, included two big moves:

• Integration with Ledger hardware wallets - expected December 15, 2023. This made SXP storage much safer for long-term holders.
• A staking rewards program launching January 10, 2024. Users who locked up SXP would earn more - a direct incentive to hold and use the token on-chain.

Messari predicted these changes could double mainnet wallet adoption in six months. Meanwhile, CoinPedia projected SXP could hit $0.61 by the end of 2025 - a 510% jump from its $0.10 price at the time of the airdrop. Bitget’s more conservative model still saw $0.32 as a realistic target.

Solar’s ecosystem was also growing. It was already being used for travel bookings through Travala.com, digital gift cards via Bitrefill, and gaming platforms like tymt.com. These weren’t just side features. They were real use cases that needed SXP to function on the mainnet.

Was It Worth It?

If you got the 10 SXP? You got $1. Maybe less, maybe more now. But you also got access to a growing blockchain ecosystem with real utility. If you didn’t qualify? You missed a rare chance to learn how a crypto project can force real adoption - not just hype.

This airdrop didn’t promise riches. It promised understanding. And in a world full of empty token drops, that’s rare.