Original author: Pix
Original translation: TechFlow
This is Pacman, who dropped out of school at 16. Now he owns a multi-billion dollar empire. Here’s the untold story behind the founder of Blast and Blur.
Since he was a teenager, Pacman wanted to build a company. So at 16, he cloned an existing startup and was hired by them. He dropped out of school and moved across the country to work there, and within a year, his entire life changed.
At just 17, Pacman founded StrongIntro, a platform that helps tech startups build and grow engineering teams. Despite his hard work, including passing YCombinator and raising $120,000 in funding, the project didn’t pan out, and the setback brought him back to square one.
Pacman realized he needed a co-founder for his next venture. He decided to look in the best place possible: college. After two years at MIT, he finally found his business partner, Anthony Liu. Their partnership was further solidified when Pacman received a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship, which enabled him to drop out of college and launch a startup.
(See video for details)
Together with Anthony Liu, Pacman founded Namebase, an on-chain website domain name marketplace. The platform quickly gained traction, exceeding $10 million in transactions in just three months and raising more than $5 million in funding. The company was successful, but they decided to sell the company after two years.
(See video for details)
In 2021, Pacman discovered NFTs and was immediately attracted to them. His first NFT purchase (Blitmap) earned him 30 ETH, which further piqued his interest. He began writing about the field and delved into its details. However, he noted a significant lack of infrastructure in the NFT ecosystem.
In October 2022, Pacman took decisive action and created Blur, an NFT marketplace. Within a year, Blur became the largest NFT marketplace, thanks to a few key features and strategic airdrops. Despite some criticism and comments like "Blur killed NFTs," the platform's success is undeniable.
(See video for details)
Not content with the status quo, Pacman launched Blast, the first L2 solution with native yield. Initially, the project faced a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). However, once Blast exited the beta phase, it experienced explosive growth with people flocking to get their hands on the airdrop.
Fast forward to now:
Season 1 airdrop has been released.
Blast has a total locked value (TVL) of $1.68 billion.
Over 1 million wallets connected to the platform.
Despite these achievements, Blast still faces FUD, and the big question is: can Pacman change market sentiment again?
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