Blast Aims to Be a Comprehensive Blockchain Network, but Can the Hype Last?

The recent launch of the Blast token (BLAST) has been a whirlwind of activity. The airdrop, a massive distribution of 17% of the token's total supply, fueled a 40% price surge, outperforming many other high-profile airdrops.

The recent launch of the Blast token (BLAST) has been a whirlwind of activity, with the airdrop fueling a 40% price surge that outperformed many other high-profile airdrops this year. But can this initial hype last?

The airdrop, along with Blast's impressive growth in the DeFi rankings (currently sitting at 6th in DeFi TVL and 4th among Layer 2s), suggests strong initial interest. The token debuted at $0.02 yesterday, which resulted in a fully diluted valuation of $2 billion at launch. The price of BLAST rallied some 40% to $0.029 before correcting to $0.0258 currently, a gain of 22.78% since launch, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The airdrop itself fueled some controversy. While the price did rise, the initial valuation of $2 billion fell short of investors' expectations. DeFiance Capital co-founder Arthur Cheong anticipated a closer to $5 billion market cap.

Wow BLAST is only trading at $2b FDV, given how the previous L2 been trading at launch I would have expected closer to $5b FDV at least.

The days of highly anticipated infra projects trading at > $20b FDV at launch are probably over.

Ethereum layer 2 network Blast aims to be a comprehensive blockchain network, providing a user-friendly experience that surpasses Metamask. It reportedly attracted a significant amount of deposits, totaling $2.3 billion between November and March. According to its Q2 2024 report, Blast has over $3 billion in total value locked, 1.5 million users and over 200 live dApps (decentralized applications). Blast also said it has "higher yield opportunities than any other chain."

But Blast's history isn't spotless. Back in November, even its own seed investors criticized the network for lacking features to justify a one-way bridging mechanism. Additionally, Blast's airdrop attracted a wave of scams, mirroring similar issues with other airdrops this year. Notably, prices of both Ethereum layer-2 network zkSync (ZK) and cross-chain interoperability LayerZero (ZRO) fell by over 40% since launch.

I got destroyed farming Blast.

We won't go into specific numbers, but let's just say I got 5% back of what I put in. Who's fault is that? 100% my own.

This is my post-mortem for myself, and hopefully people can learn from my mistakes.

So, who were the biggest winners?