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2024 has been a great year for crypto airdrops.
In the first six months of the year, we have seen Ethereum (ETH) Layer Two (L2) chain Starknet (STRK), zero-knowledge rollup ZKSync Era (ZK) and Solana-based (SOL) decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter (JUP) debut their native tokens at multi-million dollar valuations.
Restaking protocol EigenLayer’s (EIGEN) put the cherry on top of the cake by announcing the EIGEN token airdrop to unsuspecting community members.
Next in line is Blast, an Ethereum L2 chain that has established itself as the second-largest ETH L2 in terms of total value locked (TVL) within four months of its mainnet launch.
What is Blast?
Blast is an optimistic rollup on Ethereum. Blast launched its mainnet in late February 2024. The blockchain was created using Optimism‘s (OP) OP Stack.
The L2 network was founded by Tieshun Roquerre, popularly known as “Pacman” on X. Before founding Blast, Pacman co-founded NFT marketplace Blur and NFT lending platform Blend.
As of June 20, 2024, Blast boasted TVL of over $2.10 billion, data on DefiLlama showed. Only Arbitrum ($3 billion) had a higher TVL than Blast among all L2 chains.
Airdrop incentives that require participants to bridge ETH over to Blast have played a key role in Blast attracting more TVL than established L2 chains such as Base and Optimism.
Web2 me vs Web3 me
A thread ?? pic.twitter.com/9BKyNdan3x
— Pacman | Blur + Blast (@PacmanBlur) February 22, 2023
What Makes Blast Special?
Blast differentiates itself from rival L2 chains on Ethereum by offering native yield on ETH. ETH holders on Blast will automatically receive staking yield on their tokens.
The network also offers yield on stablecoin deposits. When users bridge their stablecoins over to Blast, they receive a Blast-native stablecoin called USDB. According to official documents, the yield for USDB comes from MakerDAO’s on-chain treasury bill protocol.
“L2s today do not have this yield. Incorporating ETH and stablecoin yield natively requires a new L2 designed from the ground up. Blast is an EVM-compatible, optimistic rollup that raises the baseline yield for users and developers without changing the experience cryptonatives expect,” said Blast.
Additionally, Blast shares the network’s gas fee revenue with decentralized applications (dApps) built on it. dApps are free to use the revenue for themselves or to subsidize gas fees for users.
Blast Airdrop Confirmed
Blast confirmed that it will airdrop tokens to community members on June 26, 2024.
The network has split the token airdrop allocated for its community into two parts. 50% of the airdrop is allocated for developers, and the remaining is allocated for users who have accumulated “Blast Points.”
Blast uses an incentivized point system – similar to one implemented during Blur’s airdrop – to distribute tokens.
Users automatically earn Blast Points every block based on their ETH, WETH and USDB balance. Users earn Blast Points at the rate of 0.06504987 points/block/ETH.
Additional Blast points are earned when users successfully invite other users to bridge tokens over to Blast L2.
Users will also receive extra points when they transfer ETH, WETH and USDC to dApps and interact with them.
The Blast Airdrop is official 1 week away!
Dapps must distribute all Gold and Points to users by June 25, 8am ET in order for it to be counted.
?
If you are a User and your EOA has Points or Gold, you must have signed into your Blast dashboard with that EOA at least once (either… https://t.co/sXtXVwrUMt— Blast (@Blast_L2) June 19, 2024
It’s not immediately clear what happens post-airdrop in terms of how users can redeem their points, for example, if they can redeem into a governance token or into a stablecoin.
Will Blast’s Ecosystem Attract Users?
The plethora of Ethereum L2 chains and the technical similarities between them have made the sector fiercely competitive. One way for a L2 chain to stand out is to host popular decentralized applications within its ecosystem.
The most popular dApp on Blast in terms of unique active wallets was a decentralized exchange called Thruster Finance, data on DappRadar showed.
NFT marketplace Blur — which was originally only available on Ethereum — was also a top five dApp in terms of UAW.
Another popular dApp was Fantasy Top, a Blast-exclusive social finance trading card game that lets users trade crypto influencers as trading cards.
Other interesting dApps on Blast were:
- nftperp – A dApp that allows users to trade NFTs using perpetual futures contracts. Users do not need to own the underlying NFT asset to trade them.
- Kettle – A marketplace for luxury watches.
Latest News and Analyst Views on Blast
In the short time since Blast was introduced in November 2023, the L2 chain has faced its fair share of criticism and controversy.
Blast’s marketing strategy to launch a bridge before deploying its L2 network was heavily criticized by the industry in late 2023. Dan Robinson, head of research at venture capital firm Paradigm took to X to voice his dismay, saying:
” … we (Paradigm) don’t agree with the decision to launch the bridge before the L2, or not to allow withdrawals for three months, since we think it sets a bad precedent for other projects. We also think much of the marketing cheapens the work of a serious team.”
Blast only allowed users to withdraw their tokens out of the L2 chain after its mainnet launch on February 29, 2024.
A few days before the Blast L2 mainnet went live, a gambling Dapp called RiskOnBlast rugpulled 420 ETH from investors.
The following month saw the Blast mainnet freeze for an hour after the network stopped producing blocks due to issues related to Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade.
Despite the early struggles, Blast has established itself as one of the hottest Ethereum L2s in the market.
Total number of new wallets and TVL on Blast are on an “up only” trend since its mainnet launch, data compiled by flipside showed.
In a research note, Colin Hong of venture capital firm Standard Crypto said that Blast was “one of the most interesting opportunities in crypto right now.”
“The bridge becomes the event horizon; upon crossing, idle ETH and stables transform into natively-yielding versions. Wallets become savings accounts and dApp TVL brings revenue. Users can now directly and natively capture yield from their holdings instead of having to take an opt-in action. We are big believers in the power of defaults,” said Hong
“Neither Ethereum nor the current crop of L2s were designed with widespread yield-bearing asset adoption in mind. Their ecosystems were designed and built at a time when the predominant onchain assets — ETH and stablecoins — did not bear native yield,” added Hong.
The Bottom Line
In a world where it is extremely difficult for L2s to stand out, Blast’s focus on bringing native yield to ETH and stablecoins is a unique value proposition that will help its adoption.
The coming weeks will tell whether the market will price Blast at a premium to its L2 competitors.
