Jacob 🚀

There are a lot of components of Blast that I’m excited about and would be interested in engaging with people on. That said, we at Paradigm think the announcement this week crossed lines in both messaging and execution. For example, we don’t agree with the decision to launch the bridge before the L2, or not to allow withdrawals for three months, since we think it sets a bad precedent for other projects. We also think much of the marketing cheapens the work of a serious team. We backed Pacman and his cofounder because they demonstrated an ability to build great products over many years, starting with Namebase, one of Paradigm’s first investments. Next, they worked on Blur, a cutting-edge pro NFT marketplace. I got to witness their exceptional technical talent firsthand when I collaborated with them on the design of a new NFT-collateralized lending protocol called Blend. When Pacman told us he had a vision for the L2 chain that he wanted to use to scale Blur and build on its success, we invested behind him again. We still think they are world-class builders who can deliver an L2 that brings value to the ecosystem. We’ve been discussing our concerns with the team and appreciate their willingness to engage with us, but there are still many points of disagreement. We invest in strong, independent founders who we don’t always agree with. But we understand that people may look to us to set an example on best practices in crypto. We don’t endorse these kinds of tactics and take our responsibility in the ecosystem seriously.