Some tokens have been airdropped, eg VYB got airdropped to POB holders.
But every single airdrop has been followed by a sell-off.
Do you remember Byteball, which was airdropped to all Steem holders and promptly tanked as everyone sold?
People don't value what they get for free. They only value what they buy.
Byteball was the one I was thinking of when I talked about the reckless airdrop based on reputation in the post, couldnt remember the name so thanks!
Though I would not say that is why it tanked, it got airdropped at the top of the market and naturally went down with everything else, doubt they airdropped that much of the supply for our userbase to make the biggest effect on it but considering how dumb the airdrop was I would not be surprised if it did cause a lot of the sell pressure. I remember some guy had like thousands of accounts he had bid botted to a high rep or did so after the fact to get more airdrop.
Didn't help that people like supermeatboy made 5K+ accounts to abuse it. He wasn't the only one that went extreme like that.