Following Ethereum's Shanghai update, which now allows validators to access and withdraw ETH they have staked back on Beacon Chain, new possibilities have been unlocked for L2 protocols. This includes Blast whose ecosystem just welcomed its first launchpad, Blastup.
Blast is the first Ethereum L2 to introduce native yield for ETH and stablecoins to its network. This allows compounding to occur automatically, preventing the depreciation of assets. Blast’s yield is derived from ETH staking and RWA protocols and is automatically passed on to all BLAST users, bringing the interest rate up to 4-5% which is only usually seen in L1 chains such as Ethereum. Gas fee revenue is also shared, in this case, given back to the developers. Recently, Blast became the first L2 protocol to reach 1 billion TVL in 35 days, which now stands at 1.4 billion.
Today the Blast Testnet has officially gone live which also means that the Blast Big Bang competition has started. In the competition dApps can compete to get in front of Blast’s 103k users & $1.4B in TVL, connect with top investors, and earn the Blast Airdrop that will be distributed to the winning teams. Fortunately, the stage of the project does not play a role in whether or not it can be submitted and top crypto-native investors will judge the projects. However, late and early-stage projects will be judged separately with multiple categories available to cover all types of projects. All participants will also have access to 1:1 office hours with Blast’s contributors and investors.
To join, registration and project submission, accompanied by a 3-minute demo video, are required before February 21st. On that day, judges will react to top projects and select winners on a live stream.
Criteria for the Big Bang competition include one specific bullet point: Blast-native. Participants are expected to use native Blast features and will be judged whenever their project relies on the said features as the competition is aimed at growing and strengthening the Blast ecosystem. The ecosystem itself has already begun growing, with the first launchpad being introduced just last night.
Blastup is the first launchpad platform for early-stage projects within the Blast ecosystem paving the way for other Blast-based projects. The launchpad screens the quality of projects to ensure only the ones of high quality are presented to the users, helps with documentation preparation and tokenomics, and provides a staking platform for Blastup tokens. Token holders can also utilize the seed staking feature and are guaranteed a reserved allocation for upcoming IDO projects.
