Blast unlocks $2.3bn of Ether and stablecoins with mainnet launch

Blast launches its mainnet with a unique feature of offering native yields on Ether and stablecoins.
Despite controversy over locked deposits, Blast has attracted over $2.3 billion in deposits and plans to convert points to tokens for users in May.
Blast will be the seventh-largest blockchain and the second-largest Ethereum layer 2 by total value deposited.

Blast, an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain, launched its mainnet today at 9 PM GMT.

Blast is an optimistic rollup that gives users a native yield on their Ether and stablecoins through the Ether staking yield and T-Bills from MakerDAO.

This means Ether on Blast is always earning the Ether staking yield of 3%-5% and the 5% yield offered by MakerDAO for depositing stablecoins.

Until today, once users deposited tokens, they had no way of withdrawing from Blast. That prompted Dan Robinson, head of research at Paradigm, one of the firms that invested in Blast, to post a statement on X disagreeing with the decision to lock deposits.

Still, over $2.3 billion of Ether and stablecoin have been deposited since November, earning the native yield in addition to points.

Total value of crypto assets deposited in Blast

Points are used to incentivize users to interact with a protocol in the hopes that those points will convert to tokens at a later date. Blast plans to convert points to tokens in May.

To attract developers, Blast set aside 50% of the community airdrop for mainnet protocols, and an added bonus for winners of the Big Bang competition, which saw over 3,000 protocols enter.

Excitement for this new chain was apparent as some users figured out that you could actually deposit into Blast’s mainnet before the official user interface was launched.

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All users had to do was send Ether to this contract address, and they were credited with Ether on Blast’s mainnet before it officially went live.

According to data from CoinGecko, over $50 million has already been traded on Blast, with the vast majority being memecoins. The top traded token on Blast so far has been BlastCat, with over $14 million in total volume and a market cap of $9.8 million.

But sending tokens to a blockchain that isn’t officially live yet to trade memecoins comes with consequences. There are already countless tokens that have rug pulled – which is when the creator of a project withdraws liquidity, including investor deposits, leaving token holders with nothing.

Now that Blast’s mainnet is officially live, it is now the seventh-largest blockchain and second-largest Ethereum layer 2 network by total value of crypto assets deposited.

Users can still earn Blast points until the airdrop in May. Users can also trade BLAST pre-launch futures on Aevo, a decentralised futures exchange, which implies a fully diluted valuation of $6.7 billion.

Got a tip about DeFi? Reach out at ryan@dlnews.com.