Crypto airdrops as post-speculative finance: A digital methods study of platform-mediated value in digital cultures

Crypto-finance permeates digital culture through platforms like YouTube and Telegram, transforming how financial value is produced, circulated, and legitimised. This article examines crypto airdrops – token distributions that reward users for blockchain transactions, Web3 gameplay, and online engagement – as a key site where finance becomes embedded in digital culture. What might initially appear as a niche crypto practice generates substantial platform-mediated financial participation. Across the seven airdrop campaigns documented on YouTube and Telegram, we identify a transnational and multilingual community that consistently produces, circulates and engages with airdrop-related content. Drawing on quali-quantitative digital methods, we map the communicative, visual, and algorithmic labour through which users perform eligibility for token rewards, and trace how cultures of participation sustain token value. Our findings reveal a structural shift from speculative hype cycles to labour-intensive participation, underpinned by new forms of governance, legitimacy and financial subjectivation. We argue that airdrops exemplify a post-speculative modality of finance: a structural reorganisation of speculation around prescribed labour, platform-mediated coordination, and the distributed cultural work of users. The article contributes to debates on the social logics of finance, platform governance, and the transformation of financial subjectivity.