Blast, an innovative farming project, has garnered deposits exceeding $830 million and is collaborating with key investor Paradigm to address contentious narratives. Paradigm’s General Partner and Head of Research, Dan Robinson, announced a significant technical upgrade for Blast L2, aiming to dispel criticism and improve the protocol’s design.
Scheduled for implementation next week, the upgrade introduces a new time-locked system that Robinson emphasized is open source from its inception. He highlighted its availability for other projects interested in emulating Blast and shared the relevant GitHub Gist links outlining the updates to the contract.
The specific function impacted by the upgrade is withdrawAndLosePoints. Robinson emphasized that the upgrade is intended to “set a better precedent” for the protocol, addressing concerns about Blast’s promotion of a “single-node sidechain” as an Ethereum-based rollup.
Despite earlier criticisms of its tokenomic design and uncertain rewards for liquidity providers, Blast has experienced remarkable growth in total value locked (TVL). At present, liquidity providers have injected over $838 million in USDC, DAI, and Ethereum (ETH), according to the DefiLlama tracker.
Critics had raised questions about Blast’s use of the L2 narrative, but the project continues to thrive, with substantial TVL achieved in the initial days of its public beta launch. The Dune Analytics dashboard highlights Blast as the fastest-growing network, underscoring its uniqueness as a yield farming app rather than a distinct L2 blockchain on Ethereum (ETH).