The short version
- DEX airdrop farming still runs on Hyperliquid’s example: 310 million HYPE handed out in 2024, worth $1.2 billion then and $23.4 billion now.
- Variational’s weekly points end by the close of 2026, with 32% of VAR going to points holders, while TxFlow pays 1.25 million points a week and has confirmed a token about a year after its points began.
- The crew is watching Variational’s TGE date, Lighter’s insider cliff on December 27, and how much of TxFlow’s token goes to points holders.
DEX airdrop farming has one benchmark, and it isn’t close. Hyperliquid handed 310 million HYPE to its users in November 2024, worth about $1.2 billion on day one. At today’s $75.48, the same tokens are worth $23.4 billion.
Lighter followed with a $675 million drop on December 30, 2025. Now every perp DEX airdrop starts the same way, with a points program that hopes to pull in that crowd. Two of them matter right now: Variational, whose points end within weeks, and TxFlow, whose Season 1 started on October 12. Which one is worth your trading?
Farmers are already running the numbers on TxFlow’s supply of points:
Everyone's throwing around 40M total @TxFlow_L1 points. I ran it myself, and the real number looks lower.
Season 1 pays 1,250,000 trader points a week and wraps up no later than Q1 2027.
Oct 12 to the end of March is 24 weekly epochs.
24 x 1.25M = 30M to the trader pool.
The
What Did Hyperliquid and Lighter Actually Pay Out?
More than any airdrop before them. The Hyperliquid airdrop and Lighter’s both gave a large slice of supply to people who traded, and both dropped it fully unlocked.
| Airdrop | Date | Share of supply | Value at launch | Value today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperliquid (HYPE) | Nov 29, 2024 | 31% | $1.2 billion | $23.4 billion |
| Lighter (LIT) | Dec 30, 2025 | 25% | $675 million | $773 million |
The table hides one difference. Hyperliquid’s insiders were still locked, so early sellers had little company. Lighter’s team and investors hold half of LIT, and Tokenomist puts their one-year cliff on December 27, 2026. LIT trades at $3.09, down 44% in 30 days, so the airdrop was the easy part. Holding through an unlock is the hard part.
Both exchanges are still busy. In the 24 hours to Saturday morning, Hyperliquid traded $4.09 billion in perps, Variational $1.85 billion and Lighter $1.41 billion, based on each exchange’s own API.
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Variational: The Last Weeks Before the VAR Airdrop
Variational’s points program is in its final stretch. Points go out every Friday, and the docs say weekly drops end no later than the end of Q4 2026. That leaves nine Fridays at most.
The Variational airdrop is set. The team announced on September 24 that 32% of VAR goes to points holders at the token launch, fully unlocked, with 150,000 points handed out each week until then. Team and investors hold 50% behind a 12-month lock-up.
Omni, its trading app on Arbitrum, charges no trading fees. You pay through the spread instead, the gap between the buy and sell price, which Variational’s own market maker keeps. US and Canadian residents are on its restricted list, so they can’t farm it at all.
Is it too late? For a big share, probably. Omni has done $436 billion in total volume, so a few weeks of trading buys a thin slice. For someone already trading there, the last drops are still worth collecting.
DISCOVER: Airdrop farming in the Base Camp glossary
TxFlow: Points Now, a Token in 2027
TxFlow is the opposite: early, and only now getting started. It runs its own layer-1 blockchain with an on-chain order book, and the exchange is still invite-only. You need an access code from its Discord or an invite from an existing user.
Season 1 pays 1,250,000 trader points every week from October 12 until Q1 2027 at the latest. Your share depends on the quality of your perp trading that week: volume, open interest, steady activity, fees paid and the money you keep on the exchange. Spot trades, prediction markets and cancelled orders earn nothing. Activity before October 12 gets a separate Season 0 reward, still to be announced.
TxFlow has now confirmed a token drop exactly one year after the points program started, which puts it around October 2027. What it hasn’t said is how much of the supply goes to points holders. Its points terms still only call points “one of the factors” for the distribution, so a big pile of TxFlow points isn’t a promise of a big allocation.
The case for watching it is size. TxFlow traded $147 million in the last 24 hours, against Hyperliquid’s $4.09 billion. A small exchange with a fixed weekly pool means fewer people sharing each 1.25 million points, for as long as it stays small.
The Risks of DEX Airdrop Farming
Fees come first. On TxFlow’s base tier, a taker pays 0.045% of every trade. Trade $1 million a week and that’s $450 in fees before any profit or loss, or $10,800 over 24 weeks, against points with no price.
Wash trading doesn’t work either. TxFlow’s terms ban trading with yourself and running several wallets to farm, and flagged points can be taken back later, including retroactively. Variational keeps the same right to cut points for “inorganic behavior.”
Then there is leverage. Volume is easy to make with 20x, and so is a liquidation. A points program pays nobody back for a blown account.
EXPLORE: Futures and Leverage Explained: Perps, Margin and How Liquidation Really Works
What to Watch Next
Three dates decide how this plays out. Variational has to name its TGE day before the year ends. Lighter’s insider cliff on December 27 shows whether a farmed token can survive its own unlock. And TxFlow still has to say how much of its token goes to points holders, and how Season 0 rewards early users.
Hyperliquid set the bar so high that every points program now borrows its story. Variational has a token quarter. TxFlow has a token date a year out and a long season to farm before it. DEX airdrop farming works best on an exchange you would trade on anyway, sized so the fees still make sense if the airdrop never comes.
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