The anonymous founder of the NFT marketplace Blur, known only as Pacman Blur, has publicly disclosed his personal information. In a statement released on Tuesday, Pacman revealed that he is a former high school dropout who went through Y Combinator at the age of 17 before studying Math with Computer Science at MIT.
He later received the Thiel Fellowship to leave MIT and start Namebase, which he eventually sold to Namecheap, he says. Since then, Pacman has been synonymous with his online persona, and he has chosen to continue using the name Pacman and a vtuber for calls. However, as Blur’s community has grown, Pacman has found it increasingly difficult to maintain his anonymity.
“When we started working on Blur 401 days ago, I had a conversation with Anish Agnihotri on whether to doxx or build pseudonymously,” Pacman explained. “I was 50/50 on both choices, but Anish pointed out that being pseudo gave me optionality to doxx later on. It’s hard to say no to free options!”
The announcement comes on the heels of another major development for Blur: the company’s decision to airdrop $300 million worth of additional tokens to loyal users in Season 2.
To qualify for the Mythical Care Packages, which are worth 100 times the Uncommon Care Packages, users must have a 100% loyalty score, which means they don’t have listings anywhere else.
This move is the latest in the escalating competition between NFT platforms to attract and hold customers. Blur has recently overtaken OpenSea as the most popular Ethereum NFT trading platform by trading volume, largely thanks to the platform’s lucrative token-backed incentives program.
It remains to be seen how Pacman’s public disclosure will impact Blur’s community and future plans.
