Following the launch of its mainnet on February 29th at 9:00 pm UTC, Blast, an Ethereum layer-2 network, has witnessed the withdrawal of approximately $400 million in Ether (ETH), thereby unlocking nearly $2.3 billion in previously staked cryptocurrency on the network.
Blast, an optimistic rollup blockchain scaler, offers users up to 5% annual percentage yield on Ether and stablecoins held on the network. This yield is generated from staked ETH and United States Treasury Bills (T-Bills) managed by MakerDAO, the blockchain protocol, and Dai stablecoin creator.
Prior to the mainnet launch, crypto sent to the network was locked in, leaving its 180,000 users unable to withdraw their funds. However, with the launch, users are now able to access their previously locked assets.
The total value locked (TVL) on Blast peaked at $2.27 billion on February 29th but has since decreased by 17.5% to $1.87 billion, with nearly $400 million being withdrawn post-launch, according to DeFiLlama data. Notably, the network surpassed its $2 billion TVL milestone for the first time on February 27th.
Airdrop enthusiasts have been actively engaging with the blockchain, participating in farming activities in anticipation of a Blast token, which the team has announced will be available in May.
Despite its successful launch, Blast has not been without controversy. Dan Robinson, research head at Paradigm, a seed investor in Blast, expressed disagreement with Blast’s decision to launch the bridge before the L2 and to restrict withdrawals for three months. Robinson believes these actions set a negative precedent for other projects and criticised the marketing tactics as potentially undermining the credibility of the project.
There are a lot of components of Blast that I’m excited about and would be interested in engaging with people on. That said, we at Paradigm think the announcement this week crossed lines in both messaging and execution. For example, we don’t agree with the decision to launch the…
— Dan Robinson (@danrobinson) November 26, 2023
Moreover, Blast encountered its first alleged exit scam on February 26th, when a gambling protocol named “Risk on Blast” reportedly absconded with 420 ETH, approximately $1.25 million worth at the time, collected from users for its RISK presale token.
