Blast Sets Mainnet Launch Date with $2 Billion TVL, Records First Rug Pull Incident

Just ahead of its mainnet launch, the Blast ecosystem has experienced its first rug pull incident, resulting in over $1.3 million in losses.

Blast Announces Mainnet Schedule
Blast, a layer 2 solution created by the founder of NFT trading platform Blur, has scheduled its mainnet launch for February 29th. Prior to this, Blast upgraded its cross-chain contract to meticulously prepare for the mainnet rollout.

Additionally, Blast announced the results of the BIG BANG competition, where 47 projects emerged victorious from over 3,000 teams. These teams will receive undisclosed funding over the coming months to contribute to the overall development of the Blast ecosystem.

Leading up to the mainnet launch, Blast also achieved an impressive milestone with $2 billion in total value locked (TVL) across its ecosystem.

First Rug Pull Incident on Blast
Conversely, the Blast ecosystem faced its first rug pull incident. The RiskOnBlast betting and trading platform disappeared along with over 420 ETH in assets pooled from users.

RiskOnBlast had recently raised over $1 million in Seed funding and was one of the winning projects in the Big Bang competition.

As of now, all social media accounts related to RiskOnBlast have vanished without a trace. On-chain analyst @somaxbt revealed that the stolen funds came from over 750 wallets. Subsequently, approximately $500,000 was sent to the ChangeNow swapping service, $360,000 deposited into the MEXC exchange, and $187,000 to Bybit.

One investor claimed losses exceeding $12,500, while others criticized the irresponsible capital deployment into such projects.

Blast, a layer-2 protocol built on Optimistic Rollups technology infrastructure, successfully raised $20 million in funding late last year. At its launch, Blast attracted users staking ETH and stablecoins, subsequently reallocating these assets to Liquid Staking and RWA Yield platforms, sharing interest rates with users.

However, this purported "ponzi" model has sparked considerable controversy, including criticism from its own investor pool such as Paradigm. According to the announced roadmap, the project will allow withdrawals and conduct an airdrop of Blast Point tokens based on points in May 2024.