In a funding round headed by Paradigm, Blast, an Optimistic Rollup-based Layer 2 network, successfully raised $20 million. Influential investors including Standard Crypto, EGirl Capital, Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang, Hasu, an advisor on Lido strategy, The Block CEO Larry Cermak, and a number of angel investors also contributed to this financial backing.
Tieshun Roquerre is driving this novel Layer 2 network as the creator of the well-known NFT marketplace Blur, popularly known as Pacman. The goal of Roquerre is to lower the consistently high transaction costs related to digital collectibles.
Native Yield on ETH and Stablecoins
Blast purports to provide native yields on ETH and stablecoins, in contrast to current Layer 2 networks, which have 0% base rates. Staking rewards for Ethereum (ETH) are a unique feature of Blast’s platform that are easily distributed to users and decentralized applications (dapps) at Layer 2.
The automated compounding process of Blast is one of its unique features; it guarantees that users’ balances on the network increase and they receive additional Blast rewards.
The Blast Early Access is currently only available to those with invitations. Yields are available to whitelisted users; rates are 4% for ETH and 5% for stablecoins. It is possible to accrue these benefits and Blast Points prior to the mainnet launch, which is scheduled for February 2024.
$40,000,000 Raised to Support the Blur Ecosystem
Tieshun Roquerre revealed another fundraising achievement after Blast: $40 million was raised to support the growth of the Blur ecosystem. The money raised will be used to build decentralized apps, or DApps, on top of Blast.
According to CoinMarketCap data, Blur’s native token, BLUR, saw a significant increase in reaction to this announcement, rising 6.5% in just one day to reach $0.36.
