Blast "Forges" Gold as Nilam Enters Crypto with a $1.8 Billion Order
Blast activity is up 50% this week as the Crypto Valleys game capture attention. Blast Gold is distributed with each bar equating to 35k Blast points. Meanwhile, Nilam commits to buying $1.8bn bitcoin
I’ll use a decade of traditional finance/corporate experience to refine the chaos into bite-sized chunks for you to digest.
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Market Overview
Snippet Partner (Modern Market)
Headline News
Weekly Airdrop Guide (Blast)
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Institutional interest dominates the price action for bitcoin this week as Nilam signs a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire 24.8k bitcoin ($$1.76bn):
This news sent the price of bitcoin soaring up 7% on the day to $71.5k before settling around $70k:
Despite this, we experienced the first net weekly outflow last week, since the ETFs went live:
However, this continues to be dominated by Grayscale outflows, minimal net outflows for the other Asset Managers.
Bitmex saw a bitcoin flash crash as orders were filled as low as $9k — A casual 7x for those lucky enough to have them in at that price:
Meanwhile, Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to capture headlines as Reddit is construed as a repository of valuable data for machine learning as it IPOs.
Crypto attention has shifted from Solana meme coins to Base and Blast:
XCOPY and Jack Butcher launch open-edition mints that rake in a million and 37.6k mints, respectively
Farcaster’s $degen token does a 87x in two months
Some creators claim a 5-figure airdrop from Warpcast activity (on Farcaster):
Blast (Layer 2) action is heating up as one Blast Gold equates to ~35k Blast points each at the current spot value; refer to the Airdrop Farming section below for more details on this.
NFT Market Volume
Ethereum NFT trading volume rebounded this week with some high end sales including the second Zombie Punk in two weeks:
ETH Trading Volume:
(A) 21st March: Alien Crypto Punk sale changes hands for $16.4m
Other Activity (Mintify Heatmap):
(B): The 404 narrative appears to be stronger this week with both Pandora and Asterix up as Gozali returns to launch a 404 project allegedly backed by Pandora
(C): Azuki has a strong week as holders accumulate coming into the potential $ANIME token and Anime series announced in the pipeline
(D): Captainz rally — perhaps on the recent in-person event and wider memetic culture uptick with $meme locked into the NFTs
Bitcoin Ordinal Volume:
Nodemonkes continue to rally up 23% alongside Puppets which continue to do well in the memetic culture
OMB floor price steadies after the orange eyes mint pulled the floor down with an additional 3,000 assets enter the ecosystem
SOL NFT Trading Volume
SOL continues to trade at the 50k SOL mark ($10m) daily as SOL hovers between $170 to $210:
The HOA (Parcl) NFT pumps over 100% as we approach the conclusion of the Parcl points season
Notable NFT Sales
The $16.4m Alien Punk sale was the stand-out single asset exchange this week
Ordinal Rocks competes with Ether Rocks with a $200k sale
Several Nodemonke grails sell for six figures
Active Wallets
There was no significant change in the number of active wallets interacting with ETH NFTs this week, but Solana saw a huge drop following the meme coin frenzy last week
Airdrop Tracker —> Link
(A cut of this tracker will be taken weekly and an updated version will be included each week for you to view — so tune in weekly for further opportunities!)
WARNING: Ensure you use a burner wallet that is NOT your main wallet for this.
Weekly Insight
Blast Ecosystem Begins to Garner Attention
News
Friend Tech points are selling for $4 each OTC on pre-market
Inspect partners with Sui network
GaiminIo token launching on March 26th (today)
Immutable launches a $100M Games Fund
GAM3Sgg_ releasing a 333 supply free mint and announces a $2M raise
Monprotocol keeps partnering with many top-tier projects
Fableborne playtest sign-ups live
Blast_L2 activity spiked after the announcement of Gold distribution
Loopifyyy raised another $1.75M for Endless Clouds
InfiniGods is moving to Arbitrum
Airdrop Tracker Link
If there’s appetite I’ll continue to include a weekly walkthrough on a selected airdrop.
This Week: Blast
Blast Ecosystem
Blast holds a wapping $2.4bn in total value locked (TVL), but most is sitting idle given the whales at the top of the leaderboard are only accumulating a small stack of Gold:
Activity on the chain is heating up though as Base/Solana meme coin hype dies down and attention shifts back to Blast Gold and points:
This is a huge opportunity for the little man to break in and maximize the ROI on their smaller deposits:
To enter the Blast ecosystem you can bridge ETH to the Layer 2 blockchain.
However, it’s worth noting:
If you need to pull it off the L2 there is a 14-day withdrawal time lock
But you can bypass this by using Orbiter to swap it in and out instantaneously
Fees are relatively low so you can bridge play around and then bridge back if you’ve had enough
Once bridged you’ll want to accumulate Blast Gold as this equates to 35k Blast points (702,167/19.82) per Gold:
Whereas simply depositing 1 ETH equates to just 100 points per hour — you’re incentivized to participate in dApps
Dapps can be viewed on the Blast main page along with the Gold/Points distributed to users alongside your allocation for activity:
My Strategy?
I’m bullish on the re-staking narrative so I’m farming 5 protocols in one:
The above is the:
Renzo protocol
on Hyperlock
that uses Thruster LP tokens
while also farming Blast points/gold
and Eigenlayer
Message me on X if you’re interested in this and I’ll write a guide.
Blast Gold
Big Bang winners received a bigger allocation of Blast Gold
This will be distributed on a bi-weekly basis, while others receive the dApp allocation based on post-competition deployment and activity:
But some protocols will be penalized for having protocols on other platforms; bringing back the Blur loyalty penalty system to Blast:
Which Protocols Should I Use?
David Choi (MetaStreet founder) produced an optimal Gold generation spreadsheet by TVL/Dapp:
TL;DR on the above:
It benchmarks the saturation of each dApp by their allocation of Blast Gold
It assumes that Blast Gold will be distributed by capital deployed
While this isn't always the case as there will be active users optimizing for more, compared to passive users; it's a reasonable indicator
Tip: Look for dApps with high Gold allocations, but low TVL (as a proxy for activity)
Gambling — YOLO Games
Some systematic betters have won big on YOLO games — this guy won a 400x bet:
But interestingly there’s a wave of Poker players who are maximizing the ROI while also minimizing their losses — Chris Hunichen is a professional poker player:
Their strategy may seem reckless with 5 ETH - 7 ETH a bet but with a decent amount of capital this should mean revert in the long term, resulting in significant Blast Gold distribution to top-end users:
Gaming — Crypto Valleys
This is a yield farming game, similar to Defi Kingdoms for those that played on Harmony One blockchain:
The game has just updated its mechanics driving a dip in the Yield token price, which could offer a better entry (at $89m valuation) for those with lower amounts of capital:
You’ll need level 5 to earn Blast Gold, which costs 800 Yield:
How much does this currently cost? With $YIELD at $10, it’s roughly $8k to begin earning Blast Gold (some of which you will be able to recover in the game).
If you want to look at several other protocols, check my airdrop farming master spreadsheet by filtering for Blast in column B
That’s a wrap for issue 65 of S4mmy’s Snippets. I hope you enjoyed it.
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Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered investment or financial advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.
great thoughts ob blast and farming 🤝