Pacman, the founder of Blur, the NFT trading platform with the largest trading volume, announced today that it will launch a new Layer 2 solution - Blast, which has attracted widespread attention from the community. The following will introduce the origin, basic description and early airdrop activities of Blast.
Two of the biggest opportunities we see for NFTs are reducing transaction costs and institutional-grade NFT perps. Hundreds of millions have been spent on gas trading NFTs, and perp volume is 6x bigger than spot. These opportunities require an L2.
— Pacman | Blur.io (@PacmanBlur) November 21, 2023
Pacman launches Blast Origins
1. Opportunities and challenges of new Layer 2
- Pacman pointed out that NFT transactions consume hundreds of millions of dollars in gas fees on Ethereum, while the transaction volume of perpetual contracts (Perps) is six times that of spot.
- He believes that these problems need to be solved by Layer 2 technology, including reducing transaction costs and providing institutional-grade NFT perpetual contracts.
2. Existing problems of the Blur ecosystem
- Currently, $100 million in total value locked (TVL) in the Blur ecosystem has failed to generate revenue, resulting in user assets being lost due to depreciation .
- Pacman said that almost all on-chain dapps face similar problems.
3. Solution: Create a new Layer2
- To solve these problems, Pacman proposed to build a new Layer 2 with native revenue capabilities , which can not only serve Blur, but also benefit all dapps.
- This Layer 2 will provide applications for perpetual contracts, decentralized exchanges, lending, NFT, and even SocialFi.
4. Capital Investment and New Company Establishment
- Pacman announced an additional investment of $40 million in the Blur ecosystem to develop NFT applications on Layer 2 and continue to promote NFT on Ethereum L1.
- At the same time, he founded BLAST, a new company focused on building this universal Layer2.
Finally, Pacman mentioned that BLAST was the Layer 2 that he expected to exist before Blur was launched. As the BLAST team progresses, Blur will deploy its own L2 applications (such as NFT perpetual contracts) on BLAST, and BLAST will also give back to the Blur community .
Introduction to Blast
According to official news , Blast is a Layer 2 network based on Optimistic Rollup. It has successfully raised US$20 million and received Paradigm, Standard Crypto, eGirl Capital and Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang, Lido strategic advisor Hasu, The Block CEO Larry Cermak, etc. Supported by several angel investors.
As explained above, Blast focuses on the new Layer 2 with "native earning power", which means that users can automatically earn income by cross-chaining "ETH or stablecoins" to Blast, with yields of 4% and 5% respectively. The official website states that Blast’s revenue comes from Ethereum staking and the RWA protocol.
Early airdrop activity is online
Ultimately, the main reason for widespread community attention may be the official announcement that the early airdrop event has begun. This event adopts an invitation system. Users with invitation codes can cross-chain to Blast to earn income (ETH 4%, stable currency 5%) and Blast points. The following time points need to be noted:
- February 2024: The mainnet is expected to go online, and only then will users be able to withdraw assets from Blast back to the Ethereum mainnet .
- May 2024: Blast points will be redeemable.
For readers who are interested in obtaining “airdrop points”, please pay attention to the three-step tutorial in the tweet below.
