The highly anticipated native token of the Ethereum layer-2 network, Blast (BLAST), experienced a significant surge of 40% following its launch. This performance outperformed other notable airdrops that have entered the market in recent weeks.
During its debut, BLAST was priced at $0.02 per token, resulting in a fully diluted value (FDV) of $2 billion at launch. This information is based on aggregated data from Ambient Finance and the perps trading platform Aevo.
According to CoinMarketCap data, the price of BLAST has since increased by just over 40%, reaching a value of $0.0281 at the time of publication.
This positive price movement stands in contrast to the recent launches of other high-profile tokens such as zkSync (ZK), an Ethereum layer-2 network, and LayerZero (ZRO), a cross-chain interoperability project. Both tokens have experienced significant declines of 46% and 43% respectively since their launch.
The BLAST airdrop involved the release of 17% of the token’s total supply. Of this, 7% was distributed to users who bridged Ether (ETH) or USD on Blast (USDB) to the network starting from late last year. An additional 7% was allocated to users who contributed to the success of decentralized applications (DApps) on the network, while 3% was reserved for future airdrops to the Blur Foundation’s community.
Despite the overall success of the airdrop, it faced some criticism from market commentators, particularly regarding the launch valuation. Arthur Cheong, co-founder of crypto investment firm DeFiance Capital, expressed surprise at BLAST’s $2 billion FDV, as he had expected a valuation closer to $5 billion.
Blast, co-founded by Tieshun Roquerre (also known as PacMan), the creator of Blur, received criticism from its seed investors in November for lacking sufficient features to justify a one-way bridging mechanism that required users to lock up their ETH for several months.
Similar to other high-profile airdrops this year, such as the cross-chain bridge protocol Wormhole, Blast’s airdrop event attracted a significant number of scammers. Scammers often take advantage of large-scale airdrops to impersonate legitimate projects, as these events typically require users to connect their wallets and sign transactions to claim their tokens. One victim lost over $217,000 after falling for a Blast airdrop scam and signing multiple phishing signatures, as identified by the crypto security service Scam Sniffer.
Overall, despite the challenges faced and criticism received, the Blast token has managed to achieve impressive price growth since its launch, solidifying its position in the market.