Cryptocurrency startup Blast is facing criticism after posting job listings for senior engineering roles to support a mainnet that has yet to launch.
The layer-2 scaling solution, which promises faster and cheaper transactions for the Ethereum blockchain, has attracted over $640 million in deposits from users anticipating its release.
The job postings for a Senior DevOps Engineer and Senior Protocol Engineer cast doubt over Blast’s ability to deliver on its claims of a secure decentralized finance protocol running on Ethereum.
While speculative investors have poured assets into Blast’s deposit-only smart contract in hopes of capturing early-user rewards, the crucial mainnet remains non-existent.
Blast has been mired in controversy since its founding by Tieshun Roquerre, co-founder of NFT marketplace Blur. In addition to the missing mainnet, decentralized finance participants have raised concerns over Blast’s multi-signature wallet model controlled by five signers.
Under Blast’s 3-of-5 multi-sig scheme, only three signers are required to move funds out of the protocol’s wallet. However, Blast maintains that the model offers security advantages, though other layer-2 competitors like Polygon utilize different, more centralized mechanisms.
Even Blast’s lead investor, venture firm Paradigm, has voiced apprehension about the project setting a “bad precedent” for other emerging layer-2 and decentralized finance platforms. However, Paradigm researcher Dan Robinson said Blast shows exciting potential.
As of press time, Blast would rank as the third-largest layer-2 network by value locked if its promised mainnet fully launched today, according to data site DefiLlama.Â
For now, investors and developers await the deployment of the core technology behind $640 million in speculative deposits.
