June should have been the month that the money-grabbing and interactive parties were eagerly looking forward to. However, after experiencing the three airdrops of $ZK, $ZRO, and $Blast, most people couldn’t smile, and there was no joy at all from a good harvest.
First of all, due to the airdrop rules and suspected insider trading incidents, most ZKsync studios and individual users did not receive the airdrops they deserved. According to the latest data from Dune, the average number of transactions per day on the ZKsync network in the past week was about 165.71, and the average number of active addresses per day was about 125, which is a serious decline.
After the massive witch-cleansing campaign, LayerZero unexpectedly introduced a new claim mechanism called “proof of donation” during the airdrop. To claim ZRO, users must donate $0.1 for each ZRO. Many analysts have said that this is a positive improvement to the current airdrop model, but from the user’s perspective, this undoubtedly increases the cost of claiming airdrops.
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Finally, at the end of the month, Blast, which was delayed by about a month from the original plan, finally started airdropping. Although compared with ZKsync and LayerZero, Blast is an open airdrop, and users can always see their ordinary points and gold points. However, when claiming the airdrop, Blast still played a new idea that was different from others. Although the way to claim the airdrop is essentially claim, Blast has done a great job in front-end display.
Before claiming the airdrop, users are required to watch a video lasting dozens of minutes, where founder Pacman will introduce Blast’s token economics and development plans in detail. In addition, after watching the video, users must download the mobile app and get 4 prompts before they can finally claim the tokens.
After the Blast airdrop started, it also attracted huge fluctuations and reactions in the market. Meta Era also held the eleventh topic discussion of the "Future Block" series on the X platform: "Is the airdrop rules and design ideas of the innovative Blast worth learning from?" The following are the key views shared by the guests.
Question 1: Blast finally started airdropping near the end of June. The first round of airdrops will distribute 17% (17 billion) of the total BLAST to users. The 17% consists of 7% Blast points, 7% Blast gold points, and 3% Blur Foundation. It takes care of users who get ordinary points through staking and users who get gold points through deep interaction. At the same time, it also gives some airdrop rights to users of "good brother" Blur. Is this airdrop ratio and design worthy of reference and learning for other projects?
Key point of the guest: Blast's initial distribution ratio is more in line with market rules, especially the top 1% of the activity ranking addresses need to wait for a 6-month linear unlocking period, which also alleviates the selling pressure caused by the large airdrop holders. Whether it is a staking user, a deep interactive user, or a user who has previously pledged Blur, they can all get the airdrop. It can be seen that Blast's consideration of user types in allocating tokens is relatively comprehensive, but the distribution ratio is slightly insufficient, which has led to users complaining that it is not fair and it is difficult to achieve a perfect situation.
Question 2: Of course, facing the users who received the airdrop, some are happy and some are sad. User X @Christianeth said that he deposited 50 million US dollars on Blast, but only received an airdrop of 100,000 US dollars. This is actually a result of the excessive expansion (value dilution) of ordinary points. So for users who pledge a lot of real money to get ordinary points on the one hand, and users who use small funds to bet on deep interaction to get gold points on the other hand, is there a problem with Blast's allocation? Which is more important, fund pledge or on-chain activity?
Key point of the guest: The early development of the project does require large households to pledge to form beautiful TVL data support, but in the middle stage of the project development, only staking cannot form active on-chain data, so the active data brought by deep interaction is more important. In the face of the above example, users who pledged more funds did obtain returns far below expectations. This is actually the process of mutual gaming between large households and project parties, which is full of the flavor of gambling. According to the actual airdrop distribution of Blast, it did cause certain damage to large households. Blast officials also face huge challenges in this situation. The trust of large households in the project party will continue to decline, and the contradiction between large households and interactive retail investors will also intensify, because one party succeeded in a small fight for a big gain, and the other party was disappointed with a big gain for a small gain, which will affect the harmony of the community.
Of course, Blast can also make the token distribution process as transparent as possible, and even adjust the airdrop ratios for different users and different behaviors in the upcoming second season airdrop, so that different roles can obtain the expected benefits as much as possible.
Question 3: The biggest difference between Blast and previous Layer2 airdrop methods is that it provides a platform for staking and earning interest. Users deposit mainstream assets into Blast, not only with the expectation of airdrops, but also put the assets deposited by users on the Blast chain into platforms such as LDO to stake and earn interest. Blast has rapidly increased TVL in this way. Can the success of this design be replicated? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Key point of the guest: Blast was the first to propose and implement the staking method, and Manta later adopted a similar staking model. Therefore, this design can be completely replicated, but replication is easy, but the success rate is different. Because such a staking model places relatively high demands on the project party, such as the huge challenges faced by the team's operation and resource regulation, and also places high demands on risk management, such as whether the contract is safe, whether the user's staked funds are at risk, etc.
The advantage of this model is that it can attract a large amount of TVL in a short period of time, and through staking interest, users can obtain passive income, so that users' money can be kept on the platform for a long time, and a perfect answer can be given in terms of TVL data.
At the same time, the disadvantages of this model are also obvious. The points will continue to expand as the operation progresses. A slight change in the rules can easily cause harm to early users. Transparency is also a big problem. During airdrops, users may complain to the project party due to uneven distribution, which will affect the project party's brand. The advantages of this model will also become disadvantages in a certain dimension, because as more and more people adopt this model, it will not bring good data and good user participation.
Question 4: We also noticed that Blast is listed on different exchanges compared to $ZK and $ZRO. Currently, $Blast has been listed on exchanges such as coinbase, Korea's Upbit, Bithumb, Bitget, etc., but did not appear on large exchanges such as Binance and OKX at the first time. It is more like a mutual trade-off and consideration between the project party and the exchange. What problems are reflected behind this phenomenon?
Key point of the guest: Because Blast was founded by Blur Tieshun Pacman, many users believed that Blast would be listed on Binance Exchange during TGE. At present, Binance is still the leader in CEX. With such expectations from users, Blast's pledge TVL and on-chain data are very good. As a result, it was not listed on Binance immediately after TGE, which did affect the coin price a little, and the user's airdrop income indirectly decreased. The reason behind this is actually the conflict of interest between the project party and the exchange. The two parties have not reached an agreement on the distribution of interests. The higher listing fee may cause the project party to weigh the pros and cons and no longer list on well-known exchanges.
For users, after all, Blast did not meet everyone's expectations. Users can actually lower their expectations of paying attention to it and spend their energy on other things.
Question 5: When releasing the airdrop, the Blast Foundation also announced that it would deploy a full-stack chain in the second phase, and stated that it would work with the community to develop desktop and mobile wallets designed for crypto-native users, and accelerate user adoption through incentives. It can be seen that Blast is not satisfied with just being an L2 public chain, but hopes to be a full-stack chain that can be fully integrated from chain to wallet to cex. Regarding Blast's future plans, some people commented that it wants to do too much and is afraid of taking too big a step. Some people also said that there will be no new narrative after the L2 coin is issued. What do you think?
Key point of the guest: Regarding Blast’s future plan, it is unlikely to be a full-stack CEX, and having expectations for this may not have a good result in the end. However, users can indeed look forward to the wallet made by Blast, because we have seen that Blast’s product experience has always been very good, and we believe that this good experience can be continued in the wallets released in the future.
Secondly, Blast has innovated the airdrop collection method this time. Users do not even need to sign to collect airdrops. If more project parties adopt this method to distribute airdrops, it will also allow users to maintain a new collection habit. Once you encounter an airdrop that requires a signature, users can carefully identify it and reduce the probability of phishing websites stealing user assets. This may be a potential extraordinary meaning that Blast airdrops bring to us.
Blast announced its new plan to find its own position in the L2 track, but to be honest, it is similar to other L2s and has no unique features. After TGE, we will pay attention to Blast's various on-chain data, and perhaps who can become the top L2 will have the answer. Only when the tide recedes can we know who is swimming naked.
From the above discussion, we can also see the challenges and difficulties faced by Blast. The first phase has ended and the second phase has begun. Perhaps the new data to be released will show how loyal users are to it. At the same time, Blast forced users to watch Blast's development plan during the airdrop, which is also a strong publicity and marketing. Although it is a bit forced on users, it is a good opportunity to promote your own project when users' attention is extremely high.
Not long ago, Binance co-founder He Yi wrote on Binance Square: "Nowadays, the internecine warfare between the LuMao Studio and the L2 project has turned into a farce, and the LuMao era may be over. As an ordinary investor, the LuMao strategy of 2017, 2021 IEO, nesting dolls, and even 2023 may not be suitable for today's market." Summarizing the three airdrops of $ZK, $ZRO, and $Blast, you will find that using multiple accounts to get subsistence allowances and brushing high TX are no longer applicable. On the contrary, users who pledge and interact deeply at the same time can get good returns in this stage of the airdrops. "Few accounts and fine lures" may be a major idea for the next stage of LuMao.
The era of airdrops pioneered by Uniswap, the original low-cost or even zero-cost way of obtaining airdrops may really come to an end in 2024, and the future will be all about "deep participation."