Blast closed the mainnet schedule with TVL of 2 billion USD, recording the first rug pull

GhSo...taPv

27 Feb 2024

Right before the mainnet, the Blast ecosystem just experienced a rug pull, with a loss of more than 1.3 million USD.

Blast announces mainnet schedule

Blast, layer 2 created by the founder of NFT trading platform Blur, closes mainnet on February 29. Previously, Blast upgraded the cross-chain contract to carefully prepare for the mainnet.

IT'S TIME TO BLAST OFF

Mainnet. February 29.

是时候发射了！

主网。2月29日。

BLAST 여정의 시작.

메인넷. 2월 29일. pic.twitter.com/9jaBnFF6gw

— Blast (@Blast_L2) February 26, 2024

Besides, Blast announced the results of the BIG BANG contest. 47 projects surpassed more than 3,000 competing teams to win. These teams will receive an undisclosed amount of funding in the coming months to contribute to the overall development of the Blast ecosystem.

Before the mainnet, Blast also just achieved an impressive milestone, with 2 billion USD in total assets locked on the ecosystem (TVL).

Blast has reached $2 Billion in TVL.

157,638 community members are now earning yield + Blast Points.

Stay tuned for Mainnet, February 29! pic.twitter.com/qHUYTHhupg

— Blast (@Blast_L2) February 27, 2024

The first rug pull on Blast

On the other hand, the Blast ecosystem faces its first rug pull. Betting and trading platform RiskOnBlast has gone “missing” along with over 420 ETH of assets raised from users.

RiskOnBlast raised more than $1 million in Seed funding last week and is one of the winning projects in the Big Bang competition.

To date, all of RiskOnBlast's social accounts have been lost. On-chain analyst @somaxbt said the stolen funds came from more than 750 wallets. After that, nearly 500,000 USD was sent to the ChangeNow swapping service, 360,000 USD was deposited to the MEXC exchange and 187,000 USD to Bybit.

1.@Riskonblast rugged 420 ETH worth $1.25 million from 750+ victims.

Scammers lent $497k through @ChangeNOW_io , $360k through @MEXC_Official and $187k through @Bybit_Official exchange

contract on L1

0x25f8C342E430C85829Ef5021C0720f0c60969840. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/XK2w2gTo8X

— SomaXBT (@somaxbt) February 25, 2024

One investor claimed to have lost more than $12,500. Meanwhile, others have criticized the irresponsible betting of capital on projects.

Influencers and being funds are so greedy about @Blast_L2 ecosystem that they are backing undoxxed founders with no track record in the industry.@riskonblast just rugged 500 ETH. Maybe next time perform some decent DD before putting your names as backers.

— CBB0FE (@Cbb0fe) February 25, 2024

Blast is a layer-2 protocol built on the Optimistic Rollups technology infrastructure, which successfully raised $20 million in capital at the end of last year. At launch, Blast attracted users to stake ETH and stablecoins, then reallocated these assets to the Liquid Staking and RWA Yield platforms and shared interest with users.

However, this so-called "ponzi" operating model has received a lot of controversy, even from its investment fund, Paradigm. According to the announced roadmap, the project will allow withdrawals and airdrop tokens based on Blast Point rewards in May 2024.