Blast (BLAST) Surges 20% Following Launch, Faces Phishing Attempts From Scammers

BLAST debuted at $0.02 per token, giving it a fully diluted value (FDV) of $2 billion at launch, according to aggregated data from Ambient Finance

A new airdrop from an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution has hit the market with a bang, surging in price and sparking a flood of fake airdrop posts on platform X.

The native token of Blast, called BLAST, surged by more than 20% following its airdrop on Friday, surging to a price of $0.024 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data.

BLAST debuted at a price of $0.02 per token, giving it a fully diluted value (FDV) of $2 billion at launch, according to aggregated data from Ambient Finance and the perps trading platform Aevo. The airdrop allocated 17% of BLAST’s total supply, with an initial market cap of $392 million from the blast.

The crypto asset is now trading at a price of $0.024, up slightly more than 20% at the time of publication. According to CoinMarketCap, the crypto asset has a market capitalization of $408 million and a daily trading volume of $730 million.

Of the total airdropped supply, 7% was allocated to users who bridged either Ether or USD on Blast (USDB) to the network beginning late last year. Another 7% was distributed to users who contributed to the success of decentralized applications (dApps) on the network, while 3% was reserved for the Blur Foundation for future community airdrops.

Blast, which was created by the makers of the incentivized NFT marketplace Blur, faced significant challenges from scammers on social media. Several fraudulent posts claimed that Blast’s airdrop had begun earlier than expected.

These posts, which bore the same profile picture and display name as Blast’s legitimate X account, directed users to fake websites and boasted “Gold checkmarks” introduced by the platform’s current owner, Elon Musk. Some of these suspicious links even infiltrated Blast’s official Discord server before being removed by a community moderator.

One victim reportedly lost $217,000 worth of crypto after visiting a phishing site, according to details shared by the cybersecurity firm Scam Sniffer. The user had unknowingly signed multiple malicious transactions during the visit.

Attention! With the recent surge in popularity of $BLAST, it has come to our attention that there is an alarming increase in phishing attempts. Fraudsters are sending out fake $BLAST airdrop messages on platform X, aiming to deceive unsuspecting individuals. ? pic.twitter.com/JEpbciavpG

Despite the successful distribution of the airdrop, it faced criticism from market commentators on X, particularly regarding the absence of a staking mechanism for BLAST tokens. Additionally, some BLAST token holders expressed intentions to sell their airdropped tokens immediately upon the opening of perpetual markets.

$BLASTremember to dump all of your bag the second they open perps https://t.co/9VwuQGuWP8 pic.twitter.com/VCrvtSmfwv

Blast's airdrop marks the second airdrop from an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain in June, following the zkSync airdrop earlier this month.

The zkSync token distribution attracted criticism from the community, with claims that many users were left out in favor of Sybil addresses — multiple wallets created by the same user to claim a large number of tokens.