About Tieshun Roquerre
Tieshun Roquerre, publicly known in the crypto ecosystem as "Pacman," is the Founder of Blast and a Co-Founder of Blur. He is a serial technology entrepreneur who entered crypto after earlier ventures in the domain-name and startup space. Before Blur and Blast, Roquerre founded Namebase, a platform for Handshake domain names that was subsequently acquired by Namecheap. Earlier in his career, he was involved with StrongIntro and participated in the Y Combinator accelerator program.
Roquerre co-founded Blur, an NFT marketplace designed for professional traders rather than casual collectors. Blur introduced a different product philosophy for NFT trading — emphasizing aggregation, speed, and pro-trader tools over user experience for general audiences. This positioning contributed to significant trading volume growth in the NFT market following the platform's launch. He went on to found Blast, an Ethereum Layer-2 network, as a separate product from Blur with its own token, governance structure, and technical team.
Roquerre operates primarily under the pseudonym Pacman on social media and in crypto contexts, while his legal name is Tieshun Roquerre. These refer to the same individual, and Bitnxt maintains a single canonical profile rather than separate entries for each identity.
Blur & Blast
Blur is an NFT marketplace and aggregator protocol focused on professional NFT traders. It was designed with features such as batch listing, real-time portfolio analytics, and aggregated liquidity across other marketplaces. Blur introduced its own token (BLUR) with governance and airdrop mechanics tied to trading activity. Blur and its lending product Blend represent distinct components of the Blur ecosystem. The marketplace and its token/governance structure are separate from Blast.
Blast is an Ethereum Layer-2 network built on optimistic rollup technology. Blast distinguishes itself from other L2s through a native yield mechanism — ETH deposited on Blast earns staking yield automatically, and stablecoins earn T-bill-equivalent yield by default, without requiring user action. This design embeds yield at the network level rather than as an opt-in application layer. Blast launched its mainnet in early 2024 and operates its own BLAST token for governance. Blast and Blur are separate products with distinct tokens, governance, and technical infrastructure; one token does not govern the other.
Users should note that both Blur and Blast carry smart-contract risk, market risk, and governance risk inherent to their respective designs. The Blast yield mechanism introduces additional dependencies on ETH staking providers and T-bill products used for stablecoin yield generation.
Key Contributions
Blur Co-Founding
Co-founded Blur, an NFT marketplace designed for professional traders that introduced aggregation, real-time analytics, and lending (Blend) as core product features.
Blast L2 Founding
Founded Blast, an Ethereum Layer-2 network with native yield mechanics for ETH and stablecoins, introducing a new design pattern for network-level yield in the L2 ecosystem.
Namebase & Handshake
Founded Namebase, a Handshake domain name platform later acquired by Namecheap, demonstrating prior founder experience in decentralized naming infrastructure.
NFT Market Structure
Through Blur's design choices — aggregation, pro-trader tools, airdrop-tied incentives — contributed to significant changes in NFT market structure and trading behavior during 2022–2024.
Native Yield L2 Design
Pioneered the "native yield" L2 model through Blast, embedding staking and T-bill yield mechanics at the network level rather than requiring users to interact with additional application-layer protocols.
Why Tieshun Roquerre Matters in Crypto
Roquerre's contributions span two distinct but significant areas of the Ethereum ecosystem. Through Blur, he shaped how NFT trading infrastructure is designed for sophisticated participants, introducing competitive dynamics that affected the broader NFT marketplace landscape. Through Blast, he introduced an L2 design pattern — native network-level yield — that differentiated the network from earlier rollup designs and attracted significant TVL during its launch phase. His track record as a repeat founder, beginning with Namebase's acquisition by Namecheap and continuing through Blur and Blast, illustrates a consistent pattern of building product-first crypto infrastructure aimed at specific user segments.
