If you’re on the hunt for a casual, free-to-play mobile game that pays you cryptocurrency along the way, Ethereum Blast might do the trick.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I had a “blast” playing through the simplistic color-matching puzzle stages, it’s a decently fun diversion that can put a little bit of Ethereum or Bitcoin into your wallet while you play.
Bling Financial’s free iOS and Android game is a simple color-matching puzzle game with a vibe that’s best described as “sci-fi meets Ethereum.” All that really means is that you’ll see the familiar Ethereum symbol floating around the menus and interface here and there, and people who aren’t crypto die-hards shouldn’t be turned off by that modest window dressing.
Ethereum Blast is a straightforward puzzler, tasking you with tapping two or more connected, like-colored stones to clear them from the board. As you clear stones, new ones fall from above to fill the space and potentially sets up larger matches that can earn you power-ups in the process. Each level provides certain targets of stones or items to clear within a limited number of moves.
It’s all easy to grasp and control, with simple taps used to clear blocks or activate power-ups. But it’s also largely unchallenging and mostly mindless, and you'll earn plenty of power-ups to get you out of any binds. I played through nearly 50 stages and only lost once along the way. But as a simple on-the-go distraction, it’s pleasant enough—much like Tetro Tiles, another mobile puzzler with crypto rewards.
How much can you reasonably earn by playing? Your mileage may vary, but I earned about $0.20 worth of crypto in about two hours of play. Bling’s games reward you with Bling points that you can then convert into Ethereum or Bitcoin, and then cash out to a Coinbase or PayPal account. I cashed out in ETH, but it would’ve been the same USD value in Bitcoin too.
It’s not much—but it’s more than I earned playing Bling’s Bitcoin Solitaire, which earned me about $0.09 worth of Bitcoin in a two-hour span. However, your earning potential in Ethereum Blast diminishes the more you play, as the amount of Bling points offered for playing each stage appears to dwindle over time. The game may not hold your interest for long anyway.
And to be clear, the amount of ads you’ll watch to earn even pennies’ worth of crypto is pretty overwhelming. You’ll face a full-screen video ad after nearly each completed level, and these typically last for a minute or more before you’re able to tap your way out of them. Given how short the levels are, that means you’ll spend about as much time playing as watching ads.
Is that worth it to make about $0.10 per hour? Honestly, I’d rather spend my time playing a more engaging mobile puzzler without crypto rewards—like Threes or Grindstone, or my on-and-off guilty pleasure, Candy Crush Saga. But if you’re intent on “stacking sats” or eking out ETH while playing games, Ethereum Blast is a solid option.