Recently, the DeFi community has been flooded with news—Hyperliquid, a decentralized trading protocol, airdropped its token $HYPE for the first time, and the scale was quite outrageous.

Let's start with the numbers: 274 million HYPE tokens were distributed all at once, covering over 94,000 wallet addresses. This magnitude directly set the record for the largest airdrop in DeFi history, and major media outlets are praising it as a "industry豪礼."

From the project's perspective, there's nothing wrong with this approach—spending money to attract early users, quickly accumulating trading volume and liquidity, is indeed a common tactic to create a popular application. Sounds appealing.

But here’s where things start to go wrong. The real controversy isn’t about how big the airdrop was, but whether the distribution of these 274 million HYPE tokens was fair or not. Various voices are emerging in the community:

Are the eligibility criteria transparent? Is the defense against sybil attacks strong enough? Are those who have been using the product early on getting rewarded fairly, or are they being squeezed out by opportunists?

You see, this is awkward. An airdrop can generate hype, indicating the project is indeed popular; but attracting so many doubts precisely shows that the distribution rules are unconvincing.

Think about it—what sustains a project’s long-term vitality? Isn’t it community trust? Relying solely on impressive airdrop numbers can’t fool anyone. Fair rules, transparent mechanisms—these are the real things that can truly retain people's trust.

What do you think about Hyperliquid’s approach this time?