Blast appears poised to rank as the third-largest Ethereum Layer 2 by TVL at launch.<\/p>\n
Blast, the controversial Ethereum Layer 2 from the developers behind the leading NFT marketplace, Blur, has scheduled its mainnet launch for Feb. 29.<\/p>\n
The date was announced via\u00a0 tweet<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 26, close to four months after Blast first began accepting deposits from users. Blast offers native yields on ETH and stablecoin deposits via Lido\u2019s liquid staking token, stETH, and MakerDAO. Depositors also earn Blast points, which are expected to qualify holders for a future\u00a0 airdrop<\/a>.<\/p>\n The announcement came the day after Blast\u2019s total value locked (TVL) broke above\u00a0 $2B<\/a>\u00a0amid sustained Ether\u00a0 price gains<\/a>. At launch, Blast is poised to rank as the third-largest Layer 2, sitting behind OP Mainnet with $7.6B and above Manta Pacific with $1.9B, according to L2beat. Blast\u00a0 tweeted<\/a>\u00a0that it has received deposits from 157,638 wallets.<\/p>\n Blast has consistently attracted criticism from the web3 community since bursting onto the scene in November.<\/p>\n The project initially copped flak for using airdrop incentives to lure deposits to a one-way\u00a0 deposit contract<\/a>\u00a0offering no security guarantees beyond a three-of-five multisig wallet controlled by pseudonymous developers before publishing code or deploying its network. Critics also decried the project\u2019s use of referral codes, a common feature among multi-level-marketing schemes.<\/p>\n Despite the concerns, Blast attracted more than $500M worth of deposits in less than one week. With the majority of deposits comprising ETH, the project contributed to a short-term uptick in stETH\u2019s already\u00a0 alarming dominance<\/a>\u00a0over the supply of staked Ether.<\/p>\n Blast finally released the code for its network in late January. The documentation ignited renewed criticism after sleuths accused the project of\u00a0 forking<\/a>\u00a0Optimism\u2019s code with minimal changes, altering the code\u2019s license without authorization, and without giving credit to its original author.<\/p>\n On Feb. 25, Risk, a Blast-based gambling protocol, appeared to rug-pull its investors in the first exit scam within the Blast ecosystem.<\/p>\n The project, which was overseen by anonymous developers, raised 420 ETH ($1.36M) from more than 750 community members in a pre-sale seed round before shutting down its website and\u00a0 social media<\/a>\u00a0accounts.\u00a0 Data<\/a>\u00a0from Arkham Intelligence indicates that RiskOnBlast\u2019s wallets have been emptied. SomaXBT, a fraud-focused on-chain analyst,\u00a0 flagged<\/a>\u00a0transactions showing RoskOnBlast\u2019s assets moving through centralized exchanges and coin mixing protocol.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nBlast controversy<\/h2>\n
Risk accused of first Blast ecosystem rug pull<\/h2>\n
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