Blast L2 Operation Teaching: Airdrop in half, TVL and developers I want all

Original source: TechFlow

*Editor’s Note: On January 17, Blast, a Layer 2 network launched by Blur founder Pacman, announced the official launch of its Testnet. At the same time, Blast announced the launch of the “Blast BIG BANG” campaign for developers to attract Dapps. Blast has turned itself into an L2 with its own Launchpad attributes, and at the same time, the operation idea of this incentive event has also provided us with a more straightforward model based on “revenue”. *

Blast has recently appeared in everyone’s field of vision again.

On January 17th, Blast officially announced the launch of a Testnet and a month-long “Big Bang” incentive program, encouraging developers to be active in building applications in its ecosystem, and to compete through certain rules, and the winning projects can receive Blast TokenAirdrop, as well as the opportunity to network and network with top investors.

More importantly, this incentive event is more like an audition and rehearsal, and the final stage is the Blast Mainnet. The audience was filled with users that Blast had attracted over the past few months, waiting for the launch of new projects and eager for the next liquidity feast.

Launched by Blur founder Pacman, the L2 has attracted a lot of attention since it was announced in November last year: its own revenue, Paradgim investment, and Blur’s success have all made it highly topical and controversial.

The last time Blast was widely discussed in the industry** was because of its ability to quickly attract users and liquidity. **

Within a few days of its launch in November last year, Blast’s TVL quickly surpassed $500 million, making many L2 competitors sweat, and the CEO of Arbitrum’s parent company tweeted “We created this monster”.

And now, this monster has become even bigger.

Blast has managed to absorb a total of $1.3 billion in TVL and more than 100,000 users in about 2 months. Considering that Blast has not yet officially launched and has been in operation for a short time, for comparison, the long-established Arbitrum TVL is only twice as much as Blast at $2.6 billion.

Not only does it attract users, but now Blast is also throwing an olive branch to developers.

Big Bang’s wave of testnet plans to help you find users, funds, and connections, a price code that may make it difficult for new projects to refuse.

The incentives in the crypto world are really what Blast understands.

A Testnet, Airdrop Half Points

We can take a concrete look at the details of this Big Bang test incentive program.

Think of L2 as a stage, where users watch the play and the project sings.

There were at least two annoyances for Blast, the stage organizer:

**Promise to those who watch the play that someone will sing, and promise the person who sings that someone will watch the play. **

At the same time, this is also a common dilemma faced by any platform-based project, that is, how to dig up resources when there are no two ends, or even both ends are on the side of competitors.

Blast’s approach is crude, primitive, and effective— Gain, Gain, Gain.

The L2 Mainnet is not online, but first directly and honestly tell users that depositing assets can obtain the corresponding ETH staking income and stable coin interest, which alone is enough for crypto users who are bent on making money to pour in, not to mention the follow-up points for Airdrop expectations;

On the other hand, Blast can use real TVL to attract projects to build, and also directly indicate that developers will reward Airdrops.

Testnet, half the gains.

Half of all Blast Airdrops go to developers of winning projects and Mainnet applications, and the other half goes to users who deposit liquidity on Blast.

Generally speaking, Airdrops are mostly for retail investors, and it is rare to directly use Airdrops to smash developers; but there must be brave men under the so-called heavy reward, especially in the case of other L2 ecological solidification and obvious head project effect, go to Blast to do projects, one has Airdrop, two has users, and three is virgin land, why not?

Judging from the official information given by Blast, the types of projects it currently encourages include 8 categories such as Decentralized Finance/Non-fungible Token/Social/Game/Infrastructure, which basically cover the most popular areas of liquidity in the crypto market, and it may only be a matter of time before excellent projects run under strong incentives.

We can see that Blast is eager to find talent, and at the same time, it also maximizes the value of its team and IP in terms of gameplay. Those projects that win awards in the future will also have the opportunity to have a dialogue with the relevant core members of the Blur project team, and although a single conversation will not solve any real problems, the network and circle effect it brings will be beneficial and harmless for working on projects, doing BD, or finding news.

Airdrop income and resource income are full, and Blast seems to understand very well how developers and users in the crypto market can be effectively mobilized.

Homogenization of technology, big bang operation

Blast’s Testnet Incentive Event is called Big Bang; but I think the real Big Bang is the operational idea.

Blast aside, how did previous L2s attract users and developers?

There are Airdrops, but the rules are vague and the cards are not played at the beginning; there are incentives for developers, but it seems that they do not directly connect with retail investors at the first time, but then become equivalent Token emissions to attract users to participate.

What’s more important is that the previous L2 was almost all about technical narratives, such as how far my OP/ZK technology can go, how low the gas can be, and how fast the performance can be.

This is important, but not critical.

When there are dozens of homogeneous L2s of the underlying technology in the entire crypto market, users and developers have already calculated:

I don’t care much about how good your skills are, I care more about how much benefit you can give.

Judging from the operation idea of Blast, it seems that we have played another example: I don’t expect you to think that the technical NB will come, I will directly let you come for the profit.

Open, efficient and practical.

Attract users and Liquidity with predictable benefits (ETH staking and Stable CoinInterest) first, and then attract developers with Liquidity prices.

No user will resist the temptation of real profits, and no developer will resist the temptation of “having a large number of users”.

Both ends use earnings as leverage to leverage the behavior of both parties, at least they can quickly accumulate popularity and complete a cold start of late-mover L2.

Of course, there will always be a doubt in the market that the users who rely on income and incentives are unsustainable, unorthodox, and untechnical, but the crypto world is the king or the loser, and if the incentive pile is completed, the user gets the money, the project gets the user, and L2 itself has the transaction volume and receives the transaction fee, everyone will naturally shut up.

What will still be questioned in the future will inevitably be competitors and the group of people who have not made money. This logic is especially similar to when Blur challenged Opensea before.

Blur once staged a classic case of Non-fungible Token platform preemptiveness, and new bottles of old wine, Blast seems to be using the same operating formula, cannibalizing L2’s market share:

Encourage the matchmaker, and promise benefits at both ends.

At the same time, Blast’s Testnet event, where the greater impact is, turning itself into an L2 with its own Launchpad attributes.

I want liquidity, I have it; I want incentives, I have it here; I want users, I have more.

What’s the reason not to go to Blast for a new project? On the flip side, when the idea of “new going to Blast” becomes a consensus, Blast becomes a Launchpad, and it is easier to attract later projects to try it.

In the new cycle, the tall technologies seem to be starting to fail, and users prefer projects that are less routine, easy to understand, and more incentive. So we see the rise of inscriptions, the anxiety of VCs and the pragmatic choice of more projects to join the inscription feast or the Bitcoin ecosystem if they can’t beat it.

Could it be that the L2 track is also undergoing a “down-to-earth” shift in mindset and operations? Blast has at least made a start.

It’s also interesting to say, you can always feel that the narrative is changing, the team is changing, and the gameplay is changing in the crypto world;

But behind it all, the insight into human nature remains the same.

Link to original article