Morning Minute | Blast's $425M Airdrop Comes With Big Vision

TylerD's Market Summary

🎁 Blast Airdrop Day Surprises

Expectations were sky-high for the Blast airdrop and launch of Season 2.

And as the dust has settled, it seems sentiment is squarely divided between disappointment and excitement. 

What Happened?

Yesterday Blast officially launched its token $BLAST along with its new mission to UNBANK THE BANKED.

The Blast team revealed their new bio as the "full stack chain" and released a blog (and accompanying video interview with Jenn and founder Pacman) explaining the vision.

The Blast Vision document in brief summary:

• Answers the question of what's next - building a full stack chain
• Addresses criticisms that Blast incentives only bring fake users (bringing analogies to the great American West expansion), sharing data proving the incentives worked
• Explains that Blast is more than "just a degen chain," stating that you need to start with this core group of early users and then "cross the chasm" once infra is built
• Says that to cross the chasm, Blast will need to replace users' needs for a "bank, savings account, Paypal, Stripe, Visa, or Mastercard"

What does "full stack chain" mean?

The team describes the end-to-end crypto process from crypto purchase to actual dapp usage as cumbersome and full of middle men.

The flow is Bank-> CEX / Fiat onramp -> Desktop Wallet -> Mobile Wallet -> Chain -> Dapp.

Six steps.

They aim to consolidate steps 2-5, with the new flow of Bank -> Blast -> Dapp.

They've taken the first step by launching a new mobile app, which had to be downloaded to claim the airdrop.

The app features the Blast website but on mobile, and also shows a wallet tab (to come in Q4).

It's certainly a grand vision, and one they've clearly been taking steps towards.

And if they can pull it off, the current FDV is likely far too low.

Speaking of...

Market Response

Day 1 price action for Blast was a roller coaster.

Immediately on claim, the token dumped below $2B fdv (hitting close to $1.8B at bottom).

It then rallied as high as $3B fdv in late afternoon (a few hours after being listed on Coinbase), before falling overnight to $2.5B fdv (and $433M mc).

The rest of the Blast ecosystem tokens didn't fare so well, with leading memes PAC falling 32% to $20M and ANDY falling 28% to $35M.

That was partially because the Blast Jackpot - it reset to 1M from its prior level of 3.5M.

A sign of what's to come.

What's Next

We don't know a lot about the next round of Blast incentives, but we know a bit.

• Blast Season 2 will be a year long, running until June 2025
• 10B tokens are up for grabs
• Gold will be distributed to Dapp teams monthly

And more details are to come.

Early reactions - it's going to be a marathon.

With only 10B tokens, it's a smaller pot than Season 1 - but if the FDV jumps by 70% or more, it can still be more valuable.

The biggest factor at play is which apps will be able to attract real users, because it will be hard to fake app usage for an entire year.

One thing is certain - this is a make it or break it year for Blast.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $3.9M (-1%) on the day; Polygon was next with $2.7M and then SOL & BTC with $2.3M & $1.6M 
• ETH NFT leaders chopped; BAYC +1% to 8.98 ETH, Pudgy +3% to 9.05 ETH, Milady even at 5.3, Azuki +6% to 3.17
• CyberBrokers and VeeFriends were top movers on the day, jumping 30-40% each
• BTC NFT leaders were mixed; NodeMonkes -3% at 0.167 BTC, Puppets +3% at 0.129 BTC, OMB even at 0.197 and Quantum Cats even at 0.256
• The Runes leaders were red with most down 5-10%; DOG -5% at $575 mc, RSIC -9% at $116M, and BILLION -11% at $45M
• Solana NFTs green on the day; Mad Lads +2% at 68 SOL, SMB Gen 2 +4% at 27, DeGods +9% at 19.5
• Tensor provided an update on Season 4, covering its Points formula, Tensorian multipliers, and updated leaderboard and a Dec 2024 end date
• A current NBA Top Shot settlement proposal would pay out $0.12 to anyone who owned a moment during the respective time period
• Murat Pak returned to X after and posted a simple "unlock" emoji, signifying that his censored NFT collection for Julian Assange had been uncensored

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are mixed this morning; BTC -0.5% at $61,180; ETH +0.6 at $3,400, SOL +1% at $139
• Memecoin majors are slightly red with DOGE -2%, PEPE -3%, WIF even, BONK -4%
• The U.S. government appears to be selling BTC after sending $241M to Coinbase
• Elon posted a Hawk on X (likely Hawk Tuah allusion), briefly sending the token to $40M mc before settling at $10M (still +100%)
• ZED RUN is launching "ZEDx" which will feature automated 24/7 races, racehorse retirement, dynamic auction breeding, and more

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $JASON (+100%, $30M market cap, SOL)
• $WAT (+38%, $10M market cap, ETH) 
• $KENDU (+17%, $177M market cap, ETH)
• $WOLF (+12%, $70M market cap, ETH)
• $TRUMP (+12%, $420M market cap, ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Realms (42%, 0.34 ETH Floor)
• CyberBrokers (38%, 0.11 ETH)
• Cool Cats (37%, 0.28 ETH)
• VeeFriends (28%, 0.69 ETH)
• Hedz (28%, 1.9 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is a very busy day following Blast TGE.

The BORPA token is launching, fresh off its Memeland partnership with Stakeland.

Forbes web3 Legacy Pass is minting, and Phantom is doing a drop with degen poet on Bitcoin.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• BORPA token launch (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Forbes Web3 Legacy Pass (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Satoshi's Mom x Prohibition - Onchain Summer (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Phantom x degen poet - Forever Bullish
• Floor Series 3 Drop 8 (1:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.