The Layer 2’s metrics are in free fall as airdrop farmers go away the ecosystem en masse.
Blast critics are working victory laps because the closely hyped Layer 2 (L2) experiences an onchain exodus.
The chain’s each day lively consumer (DAU) rely is at a brand new low of roughly 30,000, which is 91% decrease than Arbitrum’s 350,000 customers and 53% decrease than Optimism’s 65,000.
Blast’s TVL can also be down over 60% from its all-time excessive of $2.3 billion set on June 5, now sitting at $875 million, in keeping with DeFiLlama.
Along with a consumer drop-off, Blast can also be shedding a few of its group to opponents. PacMoon, the biggest memecoin on Blast, lately introduced its migration to Solana. Pacmoon’s PAC token is down over 80%, falling to a $4 million market capitalization from its June highs of $23 million.
PacMoon group member Lamboland took to social media and mentioned “…constructing on Blast has all the time been an uphill battle for us. We expect that tokens, group, and tradition are what make a blockchain profitable. Nonetheless, Blast by no means targeted on that. Actually, they created a system the place native tokens on Blast are actively disincentivized and so they offered zero social help.”
The BLAST token has taken a beating as properly. After reaching a totally diluted valuation of $2.9 billion on its opening day, the token worth is down 63% from its excessive.
Blast’s prime dApps have additionally felt the burden of the ecosystem’s sentiment change. The TVL of Thruster, the highest decentralized change (DEX) on Blast, dropped 54% since its June 26 airdrop, to $208 million from $457 million. Every day lively customers are all the way down to as few as 1,500 DAU on Aug. 11 in keeping with TokenTerminal, from fluctuating between 8,000 and 15,000 throughout Might and June.
The Blast group didn’t instantly reply to The Defiant’s request for remark.
Airdrop Incentives Take Their Toll
Throughout its pre-token era occasion (TGE) interval, Blast was one of the extremely anticipated airdrops in DeFi, alongside LayerZero and ZkSync, with many farmers calling for a $10 billion valuation. After it opened at far beneath expectations, most farmers didn’t hesitate to dump their allocations.
The Blast ecosystem’s harsh drawdown is indicative of DeFi’s mercenary airdrop farming scene. As proven by lots of its predecessors, when incentives dry up, the fallout could be intense.
However there’s additionally hope for restoration.
Arbitrum skilled an analogous phenomenon after its airdrop occasion in March of 2023, albeit on a delayed timeline.
Shortly after the ARB TGE, Arbitrum reached a TVL of $2.4 billion, which plummeted 36% to $1.6 billion over the subsequent 4 months. Arbitrum’s each day customers fell by as a lot as 65% to a low of 82,000 in October 2023 from roughly 250,000 each day customers on the finish of April 2023 customers.
After the submit TGE shakeout interval, Arbitrum went on to solidify its place because the primary L2 by TVL with $2.7 billion, a 62% enhance from its low. It’s presently 44% bigger than its closest competitor, Base.
Whereas chain metrics could not point out it, Blast’s season 2 of airdrop farming is ongoing. Season 2 is anticipated to conclude in June 2025, and options factors and gold just like its season 1.
