Zakat on Airdrops and Free Tokens

Short answer: An airdrop is wealth received as a gift — owned from the day you receive it. Tokens with real market value and sellability join your other monetary wealth and are paid at 2.5% on your annual zakat day. Unsellable or worthless tokens carry no zakat — the reckoning starts only when they acquire value. Details: Freely received wealth follows the māl mustafād rules — in principle it needs its own hawl, but folding it into your existing annual reckoning is valid and simpler (some zakat merely goes slightly early). Locked, unclaimable airdrops are like unvested assets — outside the reckoning until ownership completes. Evidence: Quran 9:103; Ibn Majah 1792 (ownership and hawl, sahih per al-Albani); Shaykh al-Uthaymin's guidance on mid-year acquisitions. Caution: Airdrops conditioned on gambling-like tasks, false promotion or promoting haram projects are impermissible to pursue — the source of earning must be halal. For complex individual cases, consult a qualified scholar.