There’s a lot at stake with Blast’s big airdrop tomorrow.
Almost...finally...it's here.
Ethereum’s Blast L2 is one of the more innovative protocols in terms of its incentive model to drive deposits and user activity. They have been very successful so far, allowing the network to accumulate over $2 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL), making it the second largest L2!
While Blast has become a giant in L2, its airdrop (scheduled for June 26) is imminent, and this highly anticipated event has raised undeniable concerns about the future of the network.
Today we’ll dive into what we know about the airdrop and reveal the dilemma Blast faces in its post-airdrop battle to retain existing users and their capital! 👇
What happened to Blast?
Many early Blast depositors were shocked when they received point multipliers instead of liquid tokens on the mainnet launch in February, and although the drop was promised to take place sometime in May, this date was subsequently pushed back to June 26 for unknown reasons.
Although Blast has not offered its full token economics until today, it has promised to leave half of the initially vague airdrop allocation to recipients of “points” and the other half to holders of “gold.” In addition, Blast has introduced a mechanism called “Jackpots” to distribute Gold to users, with wallets able to enter a “deck” of up to 8 blast native tokens or NFTs in these randomly occurring events and receive Gold if one of their selected projects is selected as the jackpot winner.
Needless to say, it’s been a long and winding road filled with leaderboards and incentive games, but now, after all this time, the team has finally had to deliver on the airdrop.
$BLAST will be released on June 26 at 10am ET.
Who will receive the Blast airdrop?
Blast’s success depends largely on the perception among users that engaging with the network will earn them generous token rewards, so Blast must conduct popular airdrops in order to maintain its market dominance.
While Monster's initial airdrop allocation will certainly make users feel like their past activity was valuable, it will reduce the value of future airdrop rewards and weaken the effectiveness of airdrop mining. Alternatively, a small initial drop could anger users and shake people's belief that the unclear BLAST allocation is worth chasing.
Overall, Blast has reserved 50% of the total 100 billion Blast supply for the community, of which 17 billion tokens (about one-third of the total community allocation) will be distributed via an initial or first phase airdrop.
Blast founder Pacman’s Blur NFT marketplace will receive 3 billion Blast to fulfill its airdrop commitment to participants of the platform’s Season 3 program and to fund future rewards events, while the remaining 14 billion Blast from the first phase of the airdrop will be evenly distributed among Blast Points and Gold holders.
The first 0.1% of airdrop recipients, approximately 1,000 addresses, will have to vest their portion of the airdrop linearly over 6 months and will hit a minimum monthly points threshold based on their Phase 1 activity to fully vest their allocation — this is clearly intended to allow whales and their capital to participate in the future of the network.
An additional 8 billion BLAST has been allocated to the recently established BLAST Foundation, which aims to help the community achieve the “BLAST Vision”, further details of which are scheduled to be announced tomorrow alongside the airdrop.
The remaining 42% of BLAST supply will go to insiders, with core contributors and investors receiving 25.5 billion and 15.5 billion tokens respectively; 25% of these tokens will be unlocked within one year of token generation, followed by 3 years of monthly linear unlocking.
Will Blast succeed?
This is a critical day for Blast and should serve as a gut check for the entire airdrop!
This airdrop was a live test to explore whether a crypto protocol could truly succeed simply by implementing a skillful airdrop incentive program.
While it is impossible to predict how Blast depositors will react to the airdrop, it is clear that the protocol is committed to maintaining its competitive airdrop advantage over other L2s and will implement a number of strategies to ensure the attractiveness of Blast incentives in the future.
If Blast’s airdrop recipients consist primarily of mercenary capital that immediately exits L2 in search of greener pastures, both Blast’s base case and its token price will take a significant hit, devaluing future incentives and revealing an unsustainable model.
On the other hand, a successful initial drop will build a large halo around the network and potentially attract more users and capital seeking to transfer future rewards to Blast, enhancing on-chain metrics, increasing Blast’s valuation, and increasing the attractiveness of this opportunity!
What kind of future awaits Blast? We will find out in a few hours!
