Airdrops are a common way for crypto projects to distribute tokens, and I’ve participated in a few legitimate ones. However, I recently encountered an airdrop scam that could have wiped out my entire wallet.

The offer appeared in a crypto Telegram group I was part of. It claimed that a popular DeFi project was conducting an airdrop to celebrate reaching a major milestone. To participate, all I needed to do was connect my wallet to their website and sign a smart contract.

The website looked professional, with logos and branding identical to the legitimate project. I was about to proceed when I decided to look up the airdrop on the project’s official social media channels. To my surprise, there was no mention of any such event. A quick search revealed that the website was flagged as a phishing site, designed to steal wallet credentials through malicious smart contracts.

Had I connected my wallet, the scammers could have accessed and drained all my funds. This experience taught me to always verify airdrop offers directly with the official sources and to be wary of unsolicited opportunities shared in community groups.