What Other L2s Besides Blast Will Bring Good News to Retail Investors in the Future

Bijie.com reported:
Author: Asher Zhang
Since the beginning of this year, the game between project parties and rug pull studios has been in full swing, with different voices on airdrop rules under the struggle for interests. Recently, the Blast airdrop distribution has been recognized by retail investors, but it has betrayed whales. So, what are the characteristics of Blast’s airdrop strategy? What are the L2 projects worth the attention of retail investors in the future? It is worth noting that many Layer2 leading projects have been launched this year, but the performance has been mediocre. What are the reasons behind this?
Blast brings good news to retail investors but backstabs whales
Since the beginning of this year, several large projects like ZK and ZRO have caused distress to rug pull studios, and the mouse warehouse scandal and large-scale witch cleaning activities have been very lively. However, the Blast airdrop this time has essentially brought good news to retail investors and small rug pull studios.
The Blast airdrop strategy does not check for witches and is largely committed to protecting the interests of retail investors, which has earned it a lot of market praise. At the end of June, Blast officially opened the airdrop application and announced its token economics. The total supply of BLAST is 100 billion, with 50% airdropped to the community, of which the first phase airdrop accounts for 17% of the total supply. In the first phase of the Blast airdrop, Blast Points holders can receive 7 billion BLAST, Gold Points holders can receive 7 billion BLAST, and the Blur Foundation can receive 3 billion BLAST. Most importantly, Blast’s airdrop does not check for witches, which is good news for studios and can bring them a good return. According to community feedback, those who do dapp tasks seriously or persistently can get thousands of points with the lowest cost of less than one Ethereum. This means that even with a small investment, the returns can double.
Although Blast does not check for witches, it betrays whales. In the airdrop announcement, Blast specifically emphasized that large holders will have a linear attribution of the airdrop, with the top 0.1% of users (approximately 1000 wallets) linearly attributing a portion of the airdrop within 6 months. From the current market trend, with Bitcoin leading the market decline, BLAST is expected to face selling pressure from retail investors in the short term. For whales, massive selling at this time is actually detrimental to themselves because most of the tokens held by whales are not yet released, and massive selling at this time undoubtedly harms their own interests. Blast’s move undoubtedly allows retail investors to run first and whales to lag behind, which has also led to criticism from whales.
The Blast official website shows that the number one user is @beijingduck2023. Calculated at the current price of $0.026, the BLAST received in the first phase is only worth $1,664. Co-founder of the crypto fund NDV, Christian, stated that he deposited over $50 million on blast, received 20,912,000 BLAST, worth about $540,000, but due to linear unlocking, he can only receive $100,000 of the airdrop. Christian has labeled Blast as a scam project and called its founder Pacman a “serial rug entrepreneur.”
Which L2 projects are still worth the attention of retail investors
Although recent L2 projects have been implementing increasingly complicated airdrop restrictions, many projects still focus on protecting retail investors, making it profitable for them. So, which L2 projects are worth paying attention to after Blast?
Scroll
Scroll is the 8th largest L2 and the 3rd largest zkEVM L2, with significant improvements in transaction throughput, cost reduction, and overall scalability. Scroll TVL is close to $1 billion, valued at $1.8 billion in 2023, with investments from well-known VCs such as Polychain Capital, Bain Capital Crypto, and Sequoia China. In April 2024, Scroll announced its “Scroll Sessions” reward program, where users can earn Scroll Marks, equivalent to points, through these activities. Scroll recently concluded Session Zero, where users could earn rewards by bridging assets like ETH and wstETH using the native bridge or LayerZero bridge. Session One is about to start, which may support other assets and methods to earn points.
Zircuit
Zircuit is an upcoming zkEVM that is currently in the testnet phase. It uses AI to enhance the security of the sorter and is backed by investors like Dragonfly, Pantera, and Maelstrom. Zircuit has launched a points activity where users can deposit assets like ETH, LST, and LRT into its network. Currently, Zircuit has accumulated over $2.5 billion in staked assets and attracted over 1,000 applications for the “Build to Earn” program.
Reya and Zora
Reya Network is an upcoming L2 for trade optimization supported by Framework, Coinbase, and Wintermute. Reya has announced a liquidity reward program where users can provide funds to the liquidity pool through private accounts and receive returns from trading spreads, funding rates, protocol fees, and liquidations.
ZORA is an NFT market protocol where creators can create, exhibit, and collect NFTs. ZORA has also launched the Zora Network, a Layer 2 network based on the OP Stack. With the launch of its own network, there is a possibility of governance token airdrops in the future.
Layer2 tokens underperforming as expected
Although many leading Layer2 tokens have been launched this year, their performance after listing has been disappointing. Apart from the high project valuations, what are the other reasons for the weak performance of Layer2 tokens?
From a technical perspective, the blockbuster projects in the L2 field have actually been launched this year. Although we have listed some projects with technical potential, they only have relative advantages in certain technical areas. Currently, the key to Layer2 projects lies in ecosystem development.
Currently, Arbitrum may be the biggest winner in the L2 upgrade, with the fastest growth in on-chain active users. This may be attributed to its full utilization of L3 advantages and a full-scale attack in the Web3 gaming field, attracting a large number of users. Arbitrum’s ecosystem partners include Azuki, ApeCoin, Xai, and XPET, among others. Optimism has expanded its territory through Op Stack and has built many Layer2 projects using Op Stack, including well-known ones like Base, opBNB, Zora Network, and DeBankChain. From the perspective of ecosystem development, the development of the Zk series is relatively weaker compared to the Op series.
From a token perspective, the leading Layer2 tokens have been listed relatively late, and Starknet and zkSync have just recently issued tokens, with a large number of tokens gradually unlocking. Although Arbitrum and Optimism have made some progress in ecosystem building, their ability to capture token value is still lacking. This has led to the underperformance of most Layer2 tokens. Apart from the reasons specific to Ethereum Layer2 tokens, the migration of funds from Ethereum to Bitcoin Layer2 has also contributed to this, which may be why Starknet announced its foray into Bitcoin Layer2.
In summary
From a technical perspective, the leading Layer2 projects on Ethereum have been launched one after another, indicating that their technology is maturing and can meet the current on-chain demand at the very least. Their next main goal is ecosystem development and continuous upgrades based on demand.
From a data perspective, many developers are increasingly seeking to build Layer2 on Bitcoin, hoping to become the leading Layer2 for Bitcoin, which has its pros and cons. The technical development of Bitcoin Layer2 is still in its early stages, with greater opportunities indeed. However, the slow iteration of Bitcoin’s underlying technology, its small block space, and the lack of smart contracts in Bitcoin itself make the interaction between Layer1 and Layer2 more difficult in essence, and the Bitcoin maximalism is also very much against it.
In the future, although Ethereum Layer2 and Bitcoin Layer2 may have many similarities, their future positioning is expected to be different, mainly due to the differences in the underlying technology of Ethereum and Bitcoin. Ethereum Layer2 is expected to be more popular in areas like chain games or Web3 social, while if Bitcoin Layer2 can inherit the security of Bitcoin well, it may be more popular in the DeFi and other fields.