The Real Reason Behind Blast Mainnet’s Failure: How Far Can an L2 Project Go with Only Airdrops?

Analysis of the Business Model of Blast Mainnet

Unlike traditional L2s, Blast follows a “financial incentive-first” development path:

• Native Yield
• Points System
• Gold Allocation
• Airdrop expectation

This entire mechanism essentially locks in user funds and on-chain activity in advance through “clear expected returns”. From a business logic perspective, this is a very efficient cold start strategy, but the problem is: cold starts can be driven by returns, but long-term retention must rely on real demand.

Why is it difficult for “Native Yield + Airdrop” to be established in the long term?

Native yield does not equal “risk-free yield.” As market cycles change, Blast’s earnings primarily rely on external protocol yields, capital re-staking, and incentive subsidies. When overall market liquidity decreases, the stability of this model naturally declines.

At the same time, the airdrop mechanism itself also has the characteristic of being “highly one-time”.

• The first round of airdrop is the most attractive.
• The marginal appeal of subsequent airdrops decreases.
• Users are gradually shifting from “participation” to “cash out”.

When the “expected returns” are no longer clear, user loss is almost an inevitable result.

The chain reaction caused by the imbalance in user structure

The most deadly hidden danger of Blast early on lies in the seriously biased user structure:

• Arbitrage capital
• Airdrop Studio
• Short-term speculators

These groups have three commonalities:

1. Does not care about the long-term construction of the chain.
2. Not concerned about whether the product itself is easy to use.
3. Only care about returns and redemption rhythm.

When the main users are not real users, the entire ecosystem is actually a “false prosperity”. Once the profits end, the withdrawal speed is far faster than that of ordinary public chains.

Important insights for future L2 projects

The case of Blast serves as a highly representative warning for the entire L2 track:

• TVL does not equal real users
• Airdrop does not equal ecological prosperity.
• Incentives do not equal long-term value.

The L2 projects that can truly withstand cycles in the future must meet at least three points:

• There is a stable growth of developers.
• There are real user demands.
• There is a sustainable business closed loop.

Otherwise, no matter how dazzling the short-term data is, it may ultimately repeat the trajectory of Blast.

How can ordinary investors avoid pitfalls from the case of Blast?

For ordinary investors, the lesson from Blast is also very clear:

• When encountering projects with “abnormally stable returns + strong expectations for airdrops”, it is important to remain highly vigilant.
• Do not participate in incentive-based public chains in the later stages with a bull market mindset.
• To determine whether a public chain is worth long-term attention, the key points to consider are: whether there is stable DApp income; whether there is real user growth; whether there is continuous technical iteration.

Otherwise, even if you earn profits in the short term, it is very easy to get trapped during the later stage of liquidity exhaustion.