Constructed by Pacman, the founder of NFT trading platform Blur, the Layer 2 network Blast launched on X platform on Thursday (23rd) has achieved a total value locked (TVL) of 230 million US dollars within 48 hours of its release. Currently, there are 37,131 users earning profits on the chain (ETH annualized return rate is about 4%, stable coins about 5%), and Blast points.
According to L2BEAT data, Blast quickly became the 7th highest TVL Layer 2 network in just two days (although technically Blast is not considered L2 at this stage). Blast successfully attracts users to provide liquidity through airdrops and a new profit earning mechanism, disrupting the original L2 ecosystem.
In a commentary on X platform, dForce founder Yang Mindao commented that Blast is a vampire attack on other L2 networks, similar to what SushiSwap did to Uniswap in 2020. While more competition is a good thing, from a negative perspective, Blast “completely breaks the L2 narrative, reducing it from infrastructure to JPEG/APP,” and L2 networks “will inevitably need to be re-evaluated in practice.”
Criticism of “Ponzi scheme”
Blast’s mechanism and its approach to attracting users have also drawn criticism from some members of the crypto community. NFTY Finance co-founder Tytan.eth attached an explanatory chart of Blast’s invitation system on X platform, calling it a “pyramid scheme.”
Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran believes that Blast simply acts as a multi-signature vault to deposit users’ assets into the staking protocol Lido and lending protocol Maker, earning profits and “points” for an L2 that has not yet been launched. He also describes Blast as a “one-way deposit” platform. Assets transferred to the Blast network will not be able to be withdrawn back to the Ethereum mainnet until February next year.