- Traders and investors made deposits in staked ether and DAI worth $1.1B
- The Blur token is now trading for $0.50 and has a market cap of $500 million
- Marketers and early depositors will get a big cut of the eventual airdrop
Developers of leading NFT platform Blur recently set up Blast, a layer 2 blockchain that has brought in $1.1 billion in deposits even though it won’t be launched until February. The developers promised an airdrop in May, CoinDesk reported.
Gains expected despite controversy
Traders and investors made deposits in staked ether worth $1 billion as well as $103 million in the stablecoin DAI despite controversies surrounding the one-way bridge to Blast. In exchange for their deposits, they will get Blast points as well as a yield of around 5% on any assets staked. They can redeem the points during the airdrop.
Blur organized a similar airdrop after it set up its NFT marketplace in February. This marketplace is currently the biggest by trading volume, ahead of OKX and OpenSea.
Blur token is rallying
The Blur token is now trading for $0.50 and has a market cap of $500 million, having added 23% to its value over the past month, CoinGecko data shows. The token embarked on a strong rally in November as demand spiked. It skyrocketed to a high of $0.52, its highest point since June 3. The token surged by over 216% from its lowest point in October, giving it a market cap of over $543 million at the end of November.
Critics: Project looks like a Ponzi scheme
Some members of the crypto community have criticized the concept of allowing deposits to a platform that has yet to launch. A few have suggested that the project looks like a pyramid scheme where marketers and early depositors will get a big cut of the eventual airdrop.
Even VC firm Paradigm, which backs Blast, expressed criticism. General Partner and Head of Research Dan Robinson told CoinDesk that the platform's marketing campaign "crossed lines" and that his company did not want to accept deposits before the blockchain went live.
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