Announcing The Varanida Airdrop
Advertising is THE currency of Internet. Thanks to advertising, most of our favorite websites, online publications, and applications are all free to access and use. However, the current advertising model is broken, and as advertisers and publishers race to capture profits, users are faced with bloated and slow websites, overwhelming and ad-filled user experiences, and their data being sold to the highest bidder.
To reverse that trend and create a cleaner, better Internet, the Varanida team is building a collaborative advertising and content ecosystem that will reward users for helping clean the Internet. The name Varanida comes from Varanidae, a family of big lizards that are known for being natural cleaners of mangroves and fields. Like those lizards, our goal is to work with Advertisers, Publishers, and Users to help clean the Internet.
You can find more about Varanida’s vision and roadmap on our site.
Airdrop Through A Browser Extension
We are excited to release the first prototype of Varanida, an “ad-controller” browser extension that allows our community to be rewarded any time they block intrusive ads or scripts while surfing the Internet.
Download Varanida Extension
The reward takes the form of VAD (Verified Ad) Tokens, which are ERC-20 tokens running on the Ethereum Network.
A total of 20 Million VAD Tokens will be distributed during this prototype phase, which represents 2% of the total supply of 1 Billion VAD.
Later on, with the release of the “Verified Ad Protocol”, VAD tokens will be converted into VADu and VADm, enabling the dual-tokenomics system described in the Varanida Whitepaper.
Ad-Controller + ERC-20 Wallet = The Varanida Extension
The Varanida prototype consists of an “ad-controller” extension that lives in your browser. It’s built on top of the uBlock open-source ad blocker and MetaMask wallet.
Why ublock: uBlock is the fastest and leanest ad blocking extension available. Its code is open source under GPL v3 license, which allows anyone to review it, and fork it like we have done. Other ad blocking extensions pursue rentability, either by siphoning and selling user data, or asking ad networks for a fee to have their ads whitelisted. This is not the case with uBlock, which is developed by volunteers.
As required by the GPL v3 license, and in accordance with our principles, the code of our forked extension is also open and auditable by anyone. You can view our code in Varanida’s GitHub.
We also include the same filter lists as uBlock, which includes the usual EasyList, as well as various local, anti-malware, and anti-tracking filters.
In order to reward VAD tokens when users block ads, we have to send a small amount of information about the blocked requests back to Varanida. Only requests that were blocked are transmitted, and we only transmit the minimum amount of data needed for fraud detection. (You can read more about this process here: Data Received By Our Airdrop Monitoring Server) This information will never be sold to any third party, and we will not use it internally for future tracking or anything like that.
After the airdrop period is over, the extension will remain usable for its ad blocking features, and be the basis for development of the Verified Ad Protocol.
Why MetaMask: Varanida’s prototype extension also includes a basic Ethereum wallet using a library from the MetaMask project. The MetaMask browser extension is the most popular Ethereum wallet at the moment, which means that its code is under constant scrutiny and always improving. This library is also open source, and we will contribute (and already have) to propose improvements, or fix any issues that we find with the code.
By including the MetaMask keyring component, Varanida gives users the ability to effortlessly create or import an Ethereum wallet with a passphrase (12 words seed), which can then be used to receive VAD tokens. If a user already has an Ethereum wallet, they can simply enter its Ethereum address into the extension to receive VAD tokens.
This simplified wallet can’t be used to issue transactions, so if a user wants to transfer tokens to another person, they will have to import it into a wallet manager like MetaMask or Parity first. Also, since a newly created wallet with only VAD tokens doesn’t contain ETH to pay the transaction fee, they will have to transfer some ETH to it first before they can make that transaction.
Finally, the signing capability of this component will allow us to simplify the proof of address ownership part of our Know Your Customer (KYC) phase.
VAD Airdrop Mechanism
The Varanida Airdrop will reward you with VAD virtual tokens, which will be transformed into VAD ERC-20 tokens during the Token Generation Event that will happen later this summer.
You can earn VAD during the Airdrop in the following ways:
50 VAD when you install the Varanida Extension
20 VAD if you are referred by someone already using the Extension
20 VAD when you invite a friend who installs the Extension
Up To 20 VAD Per Day when the Extension is active and blocking ads, based on the number of ads blocked
The Airdrop will end when 2% of all VAD tokens have been distributed, so the sooner you download the Varanida Extension, the more VAD you can earn! In addition, inviting your friends early on guarantees that you will earn VAD for your referral, and give your friends time to earn their VAD as well.
To maximize your VAD reward, we recommend you uninstall any other ad blocker software while using Varanida. In addition, many ad blockers are actually making money by reselling your data to advertisers, and/or have monetization deals with some ad networks, so uninstalling them helps you further protect and control your data.
How To Install And Use The Varanida Extension
First go to https://varanida.com/download and add the Varanida Extension to your browser.
If anyone referred you, enter their public address here:
Now click on ‘Create Wallet’ to create a new Wallet:
Make sure to use a strong password
Securely store your Seed Phrase
You’re all set! Now just continue browsing the Internet like you normally do, and the Varanida Extension will block all advertising and intrusive scripts.
Once you’re using the Varanida Extension, you can use it to keep track of your browsing stats:
Refer your friends at any time by sharing your Public Address with them, and earn 20 additional VAD:
If you’re an advanced user, you can also view and change additional settings:
How To Redeem Your VAD Tokens
During the Airdrop, you won’t receive your tokens immediately, but you will be able to track “virtual tokens” that show how much VAD you will receive at the end of the Airdrop. Once all of the Airdrop tokens have been claimed, an Audit and KYC phases will begin. During the KYC, you will need to identify yourself, and once your identity has been validated, you will receive your VAD ERC-20 tokens in the following days.
Any undistributed tokens that are not claimed by validated users will be redistributed to validated addresses, which prevents people from taking unfair advantage of the Airdrop system.
For the more technically inclined, you can take a look at the Airdrop code we are using:
To install the Varanida Extension and start earning VAD Tokens, visit: https://varanida.com/download
Let’s clean the Internet together!