Blast has been very popular in the past two days. The cumulative TVL in the two days since it was launched has exceeded 230 million US dollars, and the number of user addresses has exceeded 37,000.
Blast is an Ethereum L2 with native income from ETH and stablecoins. Users can obtain passive income by transferring cross-chain assets to the Blast network. Blast breaks the original L2 gameplay and provides users with additional benefits. It has caused discussion and spread since its launch.
Blast has so far raised $20 million in investment from Paradigm and StandardCrypto.
1. What is Blast?
Blast.io is an Ethereum L2 network built by the Blur team. It launched three special features: passive income, gas fees and airdrops, quickly gaining market attention.
① Passive income.
Blast has opened up a new business model for ecological Dapps. ETH and stablecoins cross-chain to Blast will automatically receive income, and Dapps can easily cash out their deposits through a single configuration.
②GAS fee income is returned to the user.
Other L2 classifies gas fee income as ecological income, and Blast returns this income to developers through the program. Developers can keep it themselves or use it to subsidize gas fees for users.
③Airdrop expectations.
50% of the Blast airdrop has been reserved for developers, who will launch in January alongside the Blast test network.
Through native income, gas returns and airdrop expectations, users' expectations are quickly raised, and there are previous successful cases of Blur, making users full of expectations for Blast airdrops.
2. Blast’s revenue model?
Blast allows users to earn income automatically, while other L2s have no passive income; users bridge assets to other L2s and there is no additional income, while the ETH on Blast will automatically compound interest.
Blast income comes from Ethereum staking and RWA protocols. The income from these decentralized protocols is automatically returned to Blast users. The current Ethereum rate of return is 4% and the stablecoin rate is 5%.
On the Ethereum mainnet, ETH is mainly pledged through Lido to obtain income, while other L2s have no passive income;
Blast is designed so that ETH can automatically rebase on L2. Users of bridged stablecoins will receive USDB, Blast's automatic rebase stablecoin; USDB income comes from MakerDAO's on-chain T-Bill protocol. When crossing back to Ethereum, USDB can be exchanged for USDC.
Blast's goal is to use the highest-yield L2 to expand the on-chain economy, and obtain corresponding points based on the user's pledge amount and interaction frequency. In the future, airdrops will be conducted based on the level of points and account weight.
3. How to play Blast?
Every new user is invitation-only and needs to fill in an invitation code to enter. You can find other people's invitation codes on Twitter or in the community.
If you have received blur airdrops before, you will get initial points after the account is activated, and some start with 0 points.
Blast has designed a tiered invitation reward model. For example, A invites B, and B invites C. A can get 16% of B's points and 8% of C's points. If the deposit amount is greater than 20E, a permanent invitation link will be unlocked.
Many interactive users use their large accounts to invite small accounts and gain points.
Blast also uses a group league format;
The directly invited people are in the same group. Players in the same group can unlock the chance of lucky cards every time they deposit a certain amount of ETH or stable currency.
If account A invites BCDE and other accounts, then A and BCDE are in the same group, A is the captain, and the amount recharged by ABCDE will be accumulated into the group amount.
When the cumulative amount of the group reaches 5e, 10e, or 20e, the corresponding group reward can be unlocked. The group reward is obtained by Captain A and has nothing to do with BCDE.
Flipping lucky cards is a group reward. Every time you flip a lucky card, you will get the corresponding lucky value. The lucky value is linked to the super flip. The higher the lucky value, the greater the probability of triggering the super flip. Whenever a super flip is triggered, 2-10 times the normal points will be randomly obtained.
The number of flips per week is related to the account recharge amount, gas consumption, transaction volume and other data, and has nothing to do with the cumulative amount of the group.
4. Risks and opportunities of Blast
2023 has come to an end. Various L2 network interactions have been vigorously carried out for more than a year, but zk, l0 and starknet airdrops are still far away.
After the launch of Blast, it attracted huge liquidity and traffic. In less than 2 days after it went online, the Blast network TVL exceeded 230 million US dollars and the number of users exceeded 37,000. However, after such a long time since Linea went online, the TVL was only 263 million US dollars.
The market needs quick and direct revenue stimulation. Other L2 projects have been PUA for a long time, and users are almost numb. A large number of users interacted with L2, and a large amount of ETH stayed on the chain without any profit; after the launch of Blast, it suddenly changed the market gameplay.
Users can get risk-free returns as long as they cross-chain to Blast. By staking ETH and stablecoins, they can get 4%-5% APY returns, as well as platform points and future airdrop returns, which can stimulate users' nerves at once.
There has been no airdrop news for various L2s, and many interactive studios can no longer persist. They continue to invest in gas fees but cannot see the money back, and the interactive front continues to be stretched.
The Blast mainnet will be launched in February next year, and rewards will be released in May. Everything has a clear roadmap. If Blast’s airdrop is attractive enough, then why wait for other L2 airdrops without any planning and expectation?
No wonder some people say that Blast is the terminator of L2. Blast attracted a large number of users within two days of its launch. They embraced Blast and abandoned L2.
Of course, Blast also has risks, such as project parties running away, projects not being completed, contract risks and other issues.
The Blast mainnet is expected to go online in February 2024 before ETH can be withdrawn. This means that in the past few months, users cannot withdraw ETH and are tied to Blast; or if ETH plummets, they cannot sell to stop losses, etc. .
In addition, Blast has no technical advantages and does not tell stories. Simply to cater to the market’s demand for airdrop interaction, it uses “airdrops” as bait as soon as it comes up. It is contrary to other L2 methods and directly uses invitation fission to attract new users and team up to challenge and win rewards. It’s a tried and tested marketing strategy.
Will it just be a mess after the airdrop? That is also one of the uncertain risks in the future.
There are new ways of playing and trying new things in the crypto market every day. Blast is a new project. Whether there will be another glorious airdrop of Blur still needs market testing. There are risks and opportunities.
The above is just my personal opinion, no investment advice. I am Chuxiaolian, and I am paying attention to the encryption market and web3.
