The NFT community enthusiastically welcomed new initiatives from Blur and Blast, which have significantly advanced in ecosystem development. Key highlights include the launch of the Blast mainnet, which sparked considerable interest in the Ethereum Layer 2 environment. Despite controversies surrounding the Blast bridge and incentive model, the launch marked a significant milestone in the platform's development. Blast, created by Tieshun Roquerre, who is also behind the NFT marketplace Blur, offers optimized yields for ether and stablecoins with interest rates of 4% and 5%, respectively.

Blast quickly gained popularity, gathering over 180,000 community members and securing more than $2.3 billion in total value locked (TVL) even before its official launch. Meanwhile, the Blur NFT marketplace hinted at new beginnings, suggesting ongoing innovations and expansions in crypto projects. Despite the announcement, the price of BLUR is trading at $0.7341 with a 5% decrease over the last 24 hours.

The launch of Blast was met with criticism, particularly regarding the initial approach to the bridge launch, which prevented users from withdrawing funds for an extended period. Questions also arose regarding the transparency and sustainability of Blast's incentive model. Despite these issues, Blast aims to innovate by offering native yield models for ether and stablecoins, underscoring their contribution to the development of the NFT ecosystem.