Morning Minute | Solana 'Blinks' Change The Game

TylerD's Market Summary

📈 Solana Blinks Connect The Internet to Solana

Crypto bears like to point to a lack of innovation in this cycle, asking what new useful applications are being built.

Well perhaps they aren't watching what's happening on Solana.

Because the devs are doing big things.

What Happened?

Yesterday Solana introduced Solana "Blinks" (blockchain links) as a new primitive.

These blinks allow users to share a Solana-based link anywere where there is an internet connection, enabling onchain transactions (i.e. swapping, payments, minting) to take place directly in app.

"Anywhere you can share a URL, you can share a Blink."

The protocol and deverloper stack to make Blinks happen has already been shared by the Dialect team.

And the use cases are already exploding.

Here are a few things you can do with Blinks directly on X for example:

• Make onchain transactions (Phantom)
• Swap tokens (Jupiter)
• Long/short tokens (Drift)
• Direct staking (Helius)
• Use Referral links for memecoins (Meteora)
• Buy/sell NFTs (Tensor)

Consumer crypto is getting closer.

Why It Matters

It's getting easier than ever to make basic onchain transactions like payments, token swaps and NFT mints.

This makes for a better onboarding experience.

Once users have some funds in a Phantom wallet, they'll be ready to do just about anything within their daily experience (like using social media).

The impacts of this are yet to be seen, but new features like referral links for tokens (made possible by Blinks and Meteora) are likely to provide new revenue streams for creators and thought leaders.

DAO voting can now be done via Twitter polls.

Memecoins can be bought directly from a viral meme post.

And we are just scratching the surface.

Expect to see a lot more Blinks on your timeline, and soon.

💰 Blast Reveals Tokenomics

The most anticipated airdrop in crypto history is landing today at 10 am ET.

Blast is finally coming, and we got key information yesterday in a 29-slide deck.

The Blast tokenomics:

• 100B tokens
• 50% for the community (17% for airdrop 1)
• 25.5% for Core Contributors (1-year lockup with 25% vest per year after)
• 16.5% for Investors (1-year lockup with 25% vest per year after)
• 8% for the Blast Foundation (unlock linearly)

As for the airdrop:

• 17B (17%) tokens for the Phase 1 airdrop
  • 7B for Blast points
  • 7B for Gold
  • 3B for Blur (retroactive and future)
• Of the 3B for Blur, 1.5B will go to Blur stakers, 0.5B for Blur farmers and 1B for future rewards
• Top 0.1% of holders will vest part of airdrop linearly for 6 months (subject to monthly Points threshold)

Overall this seems bullish for Gold as the 3% to Blur will be separated.

This led Stats to release his final Blast Gold estimate at $7 (~7.7B FDV), based on a variety of unknowns and assumptions.

But although many are calling for lower, and the token has been trading below $3 on Aevo's pre-market, there are reasons to be bullish.

The Bull Case for Blast

Blast also noted some of their highlights from this past quarter, including

• Fastest growing chain of all time
• 6th largest by Dapp TVL & DEX volume
• 5th largest by fees paid
• USDB as 4th largest global stablecoin
• $3B in TVL and 1.5M users

It presents a strong bull case for "why would someone buy this token."

Because it's already one of the strongest L2s by several key metrics.

Another key aspect of this launch is the potential low float.

The top 500 wallets apparently have 30M Gold - a large portion of which will be automatically vested. Same for points.

So the early float will be even lower than the 17% circulating supply (some are calling for 10%).

The biggest factor though - the team's tokens are locked for a full year and then vest over 4 years. So they only get paid if this L2 stands the test of time.

The Bear Case for Blast

Though I lean bullish here, the bear case is clear:

• Metrics are inflated due to farming incentives
• Mercenary farmers are more likely to dump their tokens day 1 and move on
• The market has crushed alts (L2s) over the past weeks and months

It's not the best backdrop (unless the ETH ETFs do get approved next week and provide a signficant tailwind).

Final Thoughts

Overall, today's price action likely depends on whatever new incentives to hold (stake) Blast that Pacman and team can come up with.

The game is going to continue for season 2.

And with the team's tokens not unlocking for a full year (and just 25% per year from there), they will be heavily incentivized to continue making Blast bigger and bigger.

Looking forward, it will be important to know which dapps to continue betting on (or start).

Blast specifically called out Thruster, Juice, Fantasy Top (2 slides!), IKB, Kettle and Blastr in their deck. That seems like a strong cosign by Blast leadership.

So we have an early play book.

Now we wait for Pacman to tell us the new rules of the game.

Expect fireworks.

🚚 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 $4M (-16%) on the day; BTC was next with $3.4M (+30%) and then Polygon & SOL with $3M & $1.9M 
• ETH NFT leaders chopped; BAYC +1% to 8.94 ETH, Pudgy +1% to 8.8 ETH, Milady +1% to 534, Azuki -3% to 3
• Cool Cats and DigiDaigaku were top movers on the day, jumping 30-40% each
• BTC NFT leaders saw big green; NodeMonkes +7% at 0.172 BTC, Puppets +19% at 0.125 BTC, OMB +9% at 0.194 and Quantum Cats +4% at 0.254
• The Runes leaders were green with many +10-20%; DOG +6% at $606M mc, RSIC +11% at $128M, and BILLION +18% at $50M
• Solana NFTs mostly chopped on the day; Mad Lads even at 66 SOL, SMB Gen 2 even at 26, DeGods -15% at 18
• A gold Bored Ape sold at Sotheby's for $264,000 (77.3 ETH), over 2x the lot estimate but still underwhelming compared to the 340 ETH floor and past sales

💰 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 even at $61,380; ETH even at $3,380, SOL -1% at $137
• Memecoin majors are green with DOGE +1%, PEPE +6%, WIF +4%, BONK +1%; JASON, ZYN, PAC, MOTHER outperform
• The German government continues to sell its Bitcoin, with $35M more on deck to be sold
• The ETH ETFs may be just 1 week away after comments from Gary Gensler that processing towards approval is going "smoothly," and based on filings from VanEck
• A new bill in U.S. Congress would allow Americans to pay their taxes in Bitcoin
• Conduit announced a $37M Series A led by HAUN and Paradigm, with participation from Bankless Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $JASON (+100%, $15M market cap, SOL)
• $Maganomics (+90%, $23M market cap, ETH) 
• $ZYN (+60%, $33M market cap, ETH)
• $PAC (+33%, $29M market cap, Blast)
• $MOTHER (+28%, $86M market cap, Solana)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Anata (50%, 0.45 ETH Floor)
• Cool Cats (43%, 0.28 ETH)
• DigiDaigaku (33%, 2.32 ETH)
• Early Retired Cats Club (33%, 0.33 ETH)
• Grapes (33%, 0.11 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is Blast day.

Expect all attention on any new Blur incentives for Season 4 and whatever Pacman rolls out for Blast Season 2.

Everything else will take a back seat today.

Good luck out there!

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

• Blast (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Bitcoin Monsters (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Mumbot x Prohibition - Onchain Summer (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Parallel - 3 drops (2:00 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.