What is Blast (BLAST)?

Deep Dive

1. Native Yield Mechanism

Blast's core innovation is providing native yield directly on the chain itself. Unlike most Layer 2s where assets sit idle, ETH held on Blast automatically earns yield (historically around 3–4%) from Ethereum's consensus-layer staking rewards. Similarly, its native stablecoin, USDB, earns yield (historically around 5–8%) generated by protocols that invest in real-world assets (RWAs), such as U.S. Treasury bills (Crypto.com). This yield compounds automatically in users' wallets, aiming to provide a baseline return for simply holding assets onchain.

2. Ecosystem Strategy and Developer Tools

Blast is designed to attract developers and build a vibrant ecosystem. A key incentive is gas revenue sharing, which allows dapps to earn a portion of the network's transaction fees, creating new business models. The protocol also ran extensive points and "Blast Gold" reward programs to incentivize early users and developers to build and use dapps on its network (Blast Vision). This strategy focuses on attracting early adopters ("degens") to bootstrap network effects before attempting to reach a broader audience.

Conclusion

Blast is fundamentally an Ethereum scaling solution that embeds yield generation into its architecture, seeking to shift the value proposition from cheap transactions to productive capital. Can its model of built-in yield and targeted incentives create a sustainable and sticky onchain economy?