Since it's mainnet launch in February of 2024, Blast has been generating a lot of buzz. Especially around their ongoing airdrops!

Well phase 1 of the BLAST token airdrop is complete, and participants can now begin claiming their rewards!

Of the 17 billion BLAST tokens, 14 billion are distributed to those who earned Blast Points during the campaign and those who hold Blast Gold, points given to various dapps on the Blast ecosystem to distribute to their users. The other 3 billion will go to the Blur Foundation for distribution to Blur users in future airdrops.

Blast points were earned by engaging with the ecosystem through activities such as bridging tokens onto Blast, referrals, and providing liquidity for defi protocols.

Those who participated during the last few months can claim their airdrop at https://airdrop.blast.io/. Most people should be able to claim their full airdrop. But the top 0.1% of the users will have half of their claimable tokens vested over six months.

You can also use the newly released Blast app for claims, with full wallet functionality expected to arrive in a few months.

However you decide to claim, don't wait too long. The airdrop claim portal for phase 1 will only be open for 30 days (starting from June 26th, 2024)!

Coinbase has already announced that they plan to add support for BLAST token. Users can send and receive BLAST as ERC-20 tokens on the Blast network! And in fact, trading may already be live on Coinbase by the time you read this. And while Coinbase has added questionable coins to their trading portfolio before, this is still a big win for the Blast network.

How to Earn with the Phase 2 Airdrop

But the claim that is live now is just for phase 1. Phase 2 has already begun! And the Blast team has allocated 10 billion BLAST tokens for this pahse of the airdrop.

One of the main way to earn points is by bridging and holding assets on the Blast blockchain. Users earn Blast Points on every processed block on the Blast chain based on their crypto holdings.

And since Blast offers ongoing, passive yields for ETH and USDB (Blast's stablecoin), getting in early helps as you'll be gradually accumulating more tokens, and thus earning more points! You can also invite users for even more points!

As for earning Blast Gold, you'll have to look into the offerings from the various dapps and protocols on the Blast network. But, since anyone can add themselves to the list as a dapp, it's important for everyone to do their own researching when trying to farm or acquire Blast Gold points.

Visit https://blast.io/en/airdrop to get started. You will need to connect an Ethereum wallet and join their Discord server as well.

What is Blast?

Blast is a layer2 blockchain created by the founders of the Blur NFT marketplace.

Their main tagline is ‘the only Ethereum L2 with native yield for ETH and stablecoins.' Which is true! You can earn passive income simply by holding ETH and USDB in you wallet on the Blast network! They are able to do this by using ETH staking and other protocols behind the scenes, passing those earnings back to their users.

Blast has their own stablecoin USDB. Other stablecoins bridged onto Blast are automatically converted into USDB. The Blast network uses a T-bill protocol from MakerDAO to generate interest on their stablecoin.

Both ETH and USDB are auto re-based, resulting in ongoing, compound interest, just for keeping funds in your wallet on Blast!

The Blast network currently has over $1.6 billion in total value locked onto their chain, making them the second largest layer 2 network in that regard!

And while the gaming ecosystem is just getting started on Blast, we do already see a number of games being developed on Blast including Gangster Arena and Ultiverse.

Visit their website and follow them on Twitter to learn more. They also go into more detail in a recent blog post titled, Blast Vision.