Phase 2 Points and Gold for Dapps

Blast Foundation

Jul 5, 2024 • 5 min read

Don’t want to read? Join the first Phase 2 Builder AMA in Discord, July 9 at 12PM ET.

Similarly to Phase 1, Phase 2 is split between Blast Points and Blast Gold. 10 Billion BLAST has been allocated for Phase 2 rewards. The primary purpose of Phase 2 is to support the development of mobile Dapps and incentivize users to those Dapps via the Blast App.

Phase 2 will last 12 months and end June 2025.

Key Highlights

A new Big Bang competition will begin in August with Gold rewards, cash funding, and co-marketing opportunities.
Separate Gold allocation for new Dapps specifically. New Dapps can get in contact here.
Gold distributions will be made monthly in the first week of every month.
Dapps are expected to fully distribute their Gold each month before receiving their next batch of Gold.

Big Bang

In Phase 2 there will be another Big Bang competition that allows new Dapps to participate for Blast Gold rewards, cash funding, co-marketing opportunities and access to some of the leading crypto funds, angels and advisors. The Big Bang competition will be a 3-month competition starting in August. A core emphasis of the competition will be on mobile Dapps with the launch of the Blast App in Q4. Teams can launch before, during or after the Big Bang and still be eligible for the Big Bang rewards as long as the Dapp is new to Phase 2 (it is okay for new Dapps to double dip so to speak). Further details will be shared in the upcoming weeks.

Blast Points

50% of Phase 2 rewards (5 Billion BLAST) are allocated to Blast Points. Users can earn Blast Points based on ETH, WETH, USDB and BLAST balances. EOAs and smart contracts earn Points at a rate of 0.06504987 Points/Block/ETH (each block is 2 seconds). USDB and BLAST earn Points at the same rate as ETH based on their price in terms of ETH. Ie if ETH is $3500 then USDB would earn Points at a rate of 0.06504987 Points/Block/3500 USDB.

Dapps are expected to distribute 100% of Blast Points to users based on pro rata contract balances over time of ETH, WETH, USDB and BLAST, not other incentive mechanisms. In order to distribute both Points and Gold Dapps must have the points API integrated, instructions can be found here.

TLDR; besides BLAST earning Points, there is effectively no change to how Points work in Phase 2.

Blast Gold

50% of Phase 2 rewards (5 Billion BLAST) are allocated to Blast Gold. There will be one Gold distribution the first week of every month (with the exception of the first Gold distribution which will go live July 8). Dapps are expected to fully distribute their Gold each month before receiving their next batch of Gold.

Methodology

For monthly Blast Gold distributions, Dapps are ranked based on several factors including category, Blast nativeness, Dapp traction/execution and incentive design. Each of these factors receives a score and Dapps will receive a pro-rata portion of the monthly Gold allocation based on their final score.

In Phase 2, there will be 2 separate allocations, one for already live Dapps and one for newly launched Dapps. Dapps will not be ranked globally but within their allocation group. The purpose of this is to give new Dapps a higher chance of gaining visibility and success. If you are building a new Dapp on Blast that has not received Gold before, please reach out to us via this form. There will also be a bonus allocation for Dapps that utilize BLAST itself in a novel and significant way.

If any methodology changes are made, they will be announced through the Blast Twitter, Blog, and Discord.

Blast Nativeness

Dapps receive a score of 1, 1.5, or 2 based on their exclusivity to Blast. The purpose of this is not to punish multichain Dapps but to reward teams that focus their efforts on Blast. Non-native Dapps that shift their focus to Blast can increase their Blast-native score over time and receive a full Blast Native score.

Dapp Score

Dapps are ranked either Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum based on their traction and execution. The weight of each rank can change throughout Phase 2. These are the factors that are considered:

Onchain metrics (Dapps are HIGHLY recommended to have a public Flipside or Dune dashboard showing their metrics)
General execution
Product feedback from the community
Use of Blast-native yield
Use of Blast-native gas fee sharing

A primary focus of Phase 2 will be on mobile Dapps within the Blast App. This will be a bigger factor after the full launch of the Blast App in Q4. Dapps are encouraged to design their Dapps to be mobile-first in the meantime. For certain Dapps categories (ie defi primitives) being mobile-first may be less relevant. Those Dapp categories will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and will still be supported even after the Blast App launches in Q4.

Dapps that had significant security incidents or negative community incidents will be excluded from Gold distributions. However, Dapps that learn and improve over time have the chance to earn Gold in future distributions.

Incentive Score

The Incentive Score assesses Dapps' effectiveness in distributing Gold to users and their transparency to the community. The Incentive Score only measures how Dapps utilize Gold. How Dapps utilize their own incentives outside of Gold does not affect the Incentive Score.

IMPORTANT: The Blast Foundation and Blast contributors are happy to provide feedback on incentive designs and Dapps are encouraged to reach out to us.

Dapps start Phase 2 with a full incentive score of 1. This score will then be adjusted based on the Dapps Gold distribution mechanism. The following factors are considered:

Is the incentive design thoughtful, likely to contribute to sticky Dapp growth, and unlikely to be easily gamed in negative ways (ie sybil resistant)
Are the criteria for the Gold distribution outlined extremely clearly and communicated with the Blast community either via the governance forum or the Dapps own channels?
Is the Dapp violating any of the below Gold distribution issues?

Issue 1: Incentivizing project’s token or NFT with Gold

Examples of this include Gold for holding, staking, or LPing project’s token or NFT.

Note: In Phase 1, Dapps were allowed to provide a capped multiplier based on token holdings/NFT holdings/LP positions, but this model did not contribute to organic Dapp growth in practice. As a result, using Gold to incentivize holding project’s native assets via multipliers is generally no longer allowed. If a Dapp team thinks they have a model involving multipliers that does work, they are welcome to [reach out to the Blast Foundation] to request an exception.

Issue 2: Using Gold to directly incentivize revenue to the team or DAO or allowing Gold to be effectively purchased through a fee. Note that indirectly incentivizing revenue or generating revenue outside of Gold incentives is okay.

Examples of incentive models that are okay:

Incentivizing bid ask liquidity on a dex or NFT marketplace and taking a fee on volume (important that Gold is not used to incentivize volume directly in this example).
Incentivizing volume on a dex or NFT marketplace and taking a fee on volume, but having all fees go to the user LPs (note that we generally recommend against incentivizing volume as volume is easily gameable, but it would not affect the incentive weight in this case).

Examples of incentive models that are not okay:

Incentivizing NFT mints with Gold and taking a mint fee.
Using Gold to incentivize spot dex volume, while taking a fee on the volume and directing it to the team or DAO.

Note that these are general guidelines. There are often edge cases and gray areas for specific Dapp incentive designs. Dapps are recommended to reach out to the Blast Foundation to workshop incentives together.

Issue 3: Suspicious distributions

This includes Gold allocations to insiders or KOLs. Blast Gold is intended to drive growth for Dapps and should be distributed to users proportional to their contributions with transparent criteria.