Blast mainnet goes live, unlocking $2.3b in crypto

The layer-2 project Blast has announced the launch of its mainnet.

Blast has announced in an X post on March 1 that it will airdrop tokens after the launch of its mainnet. According to the post, half will be distributed among users, and the second will support decentralized applications (dapps) such as Blast Gold. The whole airdrop allocation sum is unknown.

Launched on Nov. 22, 2023, Blast is an EVM-compatible scaling protocol that leverages Optimistic Rollups. The platform offers passive income of 4-5% per annum. In November 2023, Blast, from the head of the largest non-funglible token (NFT) marketplace, Blur, Tieshun Rokerra (Pacman), attracted more than $130 million in user funds just 24 hours after launch.

The launch of the mainnet unlocked $2.3 billion in assets stored in protocol to earn staking and airdrop rewards.

“During our Early Access phase, 181,888 community members bridged $2.3b to Blast. These community members are earning $85 million per year in native yield + Blast Points.”

Blast team

At the same time, more than 3,000 teams began working on Blast ahead of the mainnet launch. Developers have created dapps that can only exist on Blast using Blast’s own gas mining and distribution primitives, the Blast team said.

Shortly before the launch, the team of the decentralized exchange Sushi announced a partnership with Blast. The collaboration details are unknown, but users suspect the platform will integrate the Blast solution into its functionality.

The official launch announcement for Blast states that the project has raised $20 million from investment funds Paradigm and Standard Crypto.

At the beginning of the week, the Blast network’s layer 2 project, RiskOnBlast, faced a significant rug pull. About 500 Ethereum (ETH) were lost due to the hack. The troubling events unfolded when some community members noticed the sudden erasure of RiskOnBlast’s social media presence.