The 2023 airdrop tour — from mountains to across the sea

Given, not sold

Mobick has never sold coins. Instead, people could get them only by paying a cost. It began lightly: in September 2022 the book “The Metaverse and the Future of Money” came with a paper wallet, and small amounts spread through light missions like attending a talk or having a coffee.

Then, in spring 2023, Oh Taemin went to the mountains. The coin was still called GNC.

Five months

The map below puts Seoul at the centre and draws each airdrop by distance on rings — each ring is ten times farther. Watch the line extend in order; tap a stop to see its rules.

From Seoul0km

50 each

~400 people (200 expected)
100 each (scratch paper wallet)

~900 on Monday, ~1,100 on Saturday
500 for visitors by sea or air, 150 for locals
50 for local Koreans, 500 for travellers from Korea

~1,500 local wallets handed out
50 for locals, 500 for travellers
Finale — the tour ends

Distances are great-circle from central Seoul. Amounts and head counts are as stated in live streams at the time, when the coin was still called GNC.

FIG. 1The 2023 airdrop tour. Great-circle distance from central Seoul on log-scale rings, with true bearings.

Gwanaksan — 18 March 2023

The first offline airdrop: 50 coins each for anyone who climbed the mountain. Organisers expected 200; 400 came. The queue was live-streamed, and viewers saw that many others were paying the cost too. Afterwards Mobick crossed one dollar and P2P trading began.

Gyeryongsan — 17 and 22 April

138 km from Seoul, with scratch-off paper wallets holding 100 each. Oh called it “the last easy chance.” About 900 came on the Monday and about 1,100 on the Saturday — double the forecasts — and the crowding changed how later events were run.

Hallasan, Jeju — 18–20 May

Reachable only by boat or plane. Visitors who showed proof of travel received 500; Jeju residents 150. Applications surged, pre-registration and screening began, and participants started organising a community themselves.

Los Angeles — June

A hike behind Griffith Observatory. Local Koreans received 50 Mo; travellers flying in from Korea 500. About 1,500 local 50-Mo wallets were handed out.

Sydney and Montville — July

After Sydney events on 8 and 15 July, the finale took place on 18 July in Montville, a small Queensland town. Oh had said in June: “When Australia ends, the giving ends.”

Not the same fifty

Before the LA events, on 14 June 2023, Oh said the 50 coins given on Gwanaksan and the 50 given now were completely different. On Gwanaksan there was no market; now people already wanted the coin — just as 50 bitcoin in 2009 differed from 50 in 2013.

Raising the cost narrows the reach but raises the value recipients defend. The staircase from the monetary-phenomenon lesson is exactly these five months.

What the journey left

The tour ended in 2023, but the principle — give to those who pay a cost — remained. The 12 September 2025 Daedunsan airdrop, and the 2-Mo Miracle launched in late 2025 with the goal of “living through the 2023 airdrops again,” come later in this track.

Summary

March–July 2023: Gwanaksan (14 km) → Gyeryongsan (138 km) → Hallasan (469 km) → LA (9,577 km) → Sydney and Montville (~8,000 km).
The cost of getting coins rose with distance, and the same number came to mean more.
The tour ended in Australia; many participants locked their coins for five years.