Shield DAO SLD Airdrop: How It Worked and What Happened to the Tokens

18 April 2025

Back in 2021, if you were active in DeFi and had a MetaMask wallet, you might’ve seen a small but meaningful airdrop pop up from a project called Shield. Not to be confused with today’s Shield Protocol (a 2FA blockchain service), this was the original Shield DAO - a derivatives-focused protocol building something called Perpetual Options. And they gave away 4,085,754 SLD tokens to early users. But here’s the thing: most people who qualified never claimed them. And today, those tokens are effectively gone.

What Was Shield DAO?

Shield DAO wasn’t just another DeFi token project. It was trying to solve a real pain point in decentralized finance: the mess of rolling options positions. Traditional options on-chain expire, require constant manual rollover, and cost gas every time. Shield’s answer was Perpetual Options - on-chain derivatives that never expire, don’t need rolling, and work like perpetual futures but with options-style payoffs. It was built on Ethereum and tested on both Kovan (Ethereum testnet) and Binance Smart Chain.

The team rebranded from ShieldEX to Shield in mid-2021, upgrading their UI and shifting focus from just an exchange to a full derivatives infrastructure protocol. Their goal? Let traders from both CeFi and DeFi access complex derivatives without needing a centralized broker.

The SLD Airdrop: Who Got It and How?

The airdrop ran from August 5 to September 12, 2021. It wasn’t open to everyone. You had to have done something real to qualify. The project didn’t throw tokens at random wallet addresses. They rewarded contributors.

Here’s who got eligible:

• Users who participated in Shield’s Kovan or BSC testnet
• People who applied for Shield’s Initial Token Offering (ITO)
• Contributors to the first and second Bug Bounty Programs
• Participants in the Shield Gleam Series campaigns

That’s it. No Discord server lurking, no Twitter retweets, no fake engagement. If you were testing the platform, reporting bugs, or showing up early to support development - you got rewarded.

To claim, you had to go to the official airdrop page, connect your MetaMask wallet, and then - here’s the catch - switch your network to Binance Smart Chain. Even though the protocol was built on Ethereum, the token distribution happened on BSC. That confused a lot of people. If you didn’t know how to add the BSC network to MetaMask, you missed out.

There was a second claiming window on August 12, 2021, for users who hit technical issues the first time. But after September 12, any unclaimed tokens were burned and redistributed into the Shield community pool. No refunds. No extensions.

What Happened to the SLD Token?

The SLD token had a maximum supply of 1 billion. Sounds big, right? But here’s the odd part: as of 2025, CoinMarketCap and other trackers show the circulating supply as 0 SLD. That’s not a typo. The token isn’t trading. It’s not listed on any major exchange. The contract address - 0x1ef6...95a084 - still exists on Ethereum, but no one’s moving it.

Why? Because the original Shield DAO project faded out after 2021. The team shifted focus. Some reports suggest they pivoted toward building a cross-chain 2FA security platform under the same name - Shield Protocol. But that’s a completely different project. No SLD tokens. No derivatives. No airdrop history. Just a naming overlap that’s caused confusion ever since.

The SLD token was never meant to be a speculative asset. It was designed as a governance and utility token within Shield’s derivatives ecosystem. But without active development, liquidity, or a live product, it became a ghost token. A relic of 2021’s DeFi boom.

How It Compared to Other Airdrops

Back in 2021, airdrops were everywhere. Uniswap gave away 400 million UNI. Compound dropped 2,700 COMP. Even small DeFi projects gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars in tokens just for using their testnet.

Shield’s airdrop was different. It was smaller - just over 4 million tokens - but it was smarter. They didn’t chase hype. They rewarded technical contributors. Bug hunters got paid. Testnet users who found real issues got rewarded. That’s rare.

Compare that to Skyren DAO, a newer model that launched in 2024. Skyren doesn’t do one-off airdrops. It runs a DAO that farms airdrops from dozens of projects, using AI to track eligibility and auto-claim. It’s like a hedge fund for airdrops. Shield was more like a thank-you note. One-time. Personal. Built for community, not profit.

Why Most People Never Claimed

Let’s be honest: claiming an airdrop in 2021 wasn’t easy for the average person. You needed:

• A wallet with some ETH or BNB for gas
• Knowledge of how to switch networks in MetaMask
• Proof you qualified - which meant digging through old emails or transaction histories
• Time - the window was five weeks, but most people didn’t even know it existed

A lot of early DeFi users were still learning. They’d joined a testnet, submitted a bug report, then forgot about it. When the airdrop page went live, they didn’t get the email. Or they did, but thought it was spam. Or they clicked it, got scared by the network switch, and backed out.

Community forums from that time are full of posts like: “I did the testnet, but I don’t see any tokens.” Or “Is this a scam?” The project’s Medium guides helped, but they weren’t widely shared.

What You Can Learn From This

The Shield DAO airdrop isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a case study in how not to lose value - and how to build real community.

First, if you’re participating in an airdrop now: don’t assume it’s safe just because it’s from a project you’ve heard of. Names get reused. Shield Protocol today has nothing to do with Shield DAO from 2021. Always check the contract address. Always verify the official website. Never click links from Discord DMs.

Second, if you’re building a project: reward real participation, not vanity metrics. Shield’s model worked because it valued contributors, not followers. That’s why it earned trust. Even if the token died, the team built something meaningful.

Third, if you’re holding old tokens: check their status. If the project is dead and the token isn’t listed anywhere, it’s likely worthless. Don’t hold onto it hoping it’ll come back. That’s how people lose money.

Is There Any Way to Claim SLD Today?

No. The claiming period ended on September 12, 2021. The official page is offline. The contract is inactive. Even if you had the private keys to the wallet that qualified, there’s no way to retrieve the tokens now.

The unclaimed SLD tokens were redistributed into Shield’s community pool - but that pool was never used to launch a new token or a new protocol. It vanished into the blockchain ether.

If you see someone selling SLD tokens today, it’s a scam. There is no active market. No exchange lists it. No wallet can receive it. The token is dead.

What’s Happening With Shield Now?

There’s a new project called Shield Protocol - launched in 2023 - that offers blockchain-based two-factor authentication. It’s integrated with major cloud providers like AWS and Azure. It’s a security tool. It has its own token, but it’s not SLD. It doesn’t have an airdrop history. It’s a different team, different tech, different mission.

The naming overlap is unfortunate. It’s led to confusion, fake websites, and people wasting time trying to claim tokens that don’t exist anymore.

So if you’re looking for the original Shield DAO? It’s gone. The airdrop is over. The tokens are gone. But the lesson remains: real value comes from building, not begging for free tokens.