Blast: What We Know About the New Paradigm-Backed Native Yield Platform

Traders trying to claim their $BLUR airdrops last night will have noticed when watching the TRON-esque claim animation, the announcement that Blur’s season three would be a collaboration with Blast, which calls itself an L2 with native yield.

Blast, funded in a $20m raise by StandardCrypto, Paradigm, and, leading its community round, egirl_capital, made a case for a native-yield L2 in its introductory thread on X.

“Blast is built on the principle that markets march towards efficiency. More specifically, liquidity flows to where it can get the highest yield,” they said. “The baseline interest rate on existing L2s is 0%, so by default, the value of your assets depreciates over time. Blast is the first L2 with native yield. On Blast, your balance compounds automatically and earns Blast rewards on top,” they posted yesterday on X.

The L2, which has not yet been launched, will be an EVM-compatible optimistic rollup, and will allow you to earn yield on stablecoins. “When you bridge stablecoins like USDC, USDT, and DAI to Blast, it’s deposited in on-chain T-Bill protocols like MakerDAO, and the yield is passed back to Blast users via USDB, Blast’s auto-rebasing stablecoin,” they explained.

Right now, Blast is offering a seven-day window in which they promise an airdrop to users who stake any amount on their website—where Twitter and Discord authentication fell over last night under intense demand.

The promise of free rewards—and the ready availability of recently-airdropped $BLUR—has enticed this high demand—and big stakes as well as small ones. “I put the minimum in to collect my airdrop points (bridge any amount first seven days to claim) and put my small blur airdrop into that pool to farm for now,” one trader told nft now.

NiftyNoon editor Axu told nft now that he committed six figures to Blast last night. “I think Blast has a very strong incentive system. Pacman has proven time and time again he’s able to subvert expectations and surprise the market with innovative products. I am really excited to see what he does next,” he said.

Anything you put into Blast will be locked up until February—an important concern when the volatility of the crypto market could wipe out any speculative gains from Blast’s upcoming token.

Also, the promised L2 and its bridge are not built yet; at present, any money sent to Blast goes into a five-person multi-sig wallet. Then, your ETH gets staked on Lido, and if you deposit USDC, it gets deposited to MakerDAO’s DSR. According to Superbridge builder 0xAlex_, who analyzed the Blast smart contract, messaging points to the actual L2 launching in February—right when the first lockup period ends.

Along with staking and yield farming—which has tax implications for Blast users—people can also earn from Blast by referring their friends via invite codes—which has attracted comments that the system may be a pyramid scheme, complete with the hilarious Office clip. 

According to Blast and Blur dev and cofounder Tieshun Roquerre, also known as pacman, Blast will address an unmet need in the space.

“Two of the biggest opportunities we see for NFTs are reducing transaction costs and institutional-grade NFT perps. Hundreds of millions have been spent on gas trading NFTs, and the perp volume is 6x bigger than the spot. These opportunities require an L2,” he said in a post on X. “This L2 would be not only useful for Blur but all dapps. L2s are not just execution environments but execution + liquidity environments. An L2 with native yield unlocks possibilities for the entire on-chain economy. Perps, dexes, lending, NFTs, and even SocialFi would benefit,” he said.