Blast announced the shutdown of its Ethereum layer 2 network on Friday. Operating costs now exceed the revenue generated by the chain, and the team no longer sees “any credible path” to a sustainable model. Users have until October 26 to withdraw their assets.
In brief
- Blast invites users to withdraw their assets to Ethereum before October 26, then via bridge contracts.
- The withdrawal period increases to 24 hours, after a pause of approximately one week while Blast removes its assets from Lido.
- Its locked value has increased from around $2.2 billion in June 2024 to around $32 million today.
A clean close, and a countdown
Ethereum Layer 2s are going through a patch of turbulence, since falling fees on the mainnet have reduced the size of the pie. Blast is the latest victim, with an announcement made on Friday. The network is shutting down, and users are asked to repatriate their assets to Ethereum by October 26.
The team detailed its decision in a message published on. “ Blast’s maintenance costs exceed the revenue generated by L2, and we do not see a credible path to an economically sustainable model “, she writes.
The withdrawal period will increase to 24 hours, after a suspension of approximately one week, while Blast unwinds its assets placed in Lido. After October 26, you will need to interact directly with bridge contracts on Ethereum.
Two billion deposits, then the collapse
Blast was not an anonymous project. Behind him, Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre, founder of the NFT marketplace Blur, who shook up OpenSea in 2022 with incentives. Unveiled in November 2023 with native yield on ETH and stablecoins and points promising an airdrop, it attracts over $2 billion in deposits ahead of its launch in February 2024.
What follows is more painful. Its locked value peaked around $2.2 billion in June 2024, before melting by more than 98% (DefiLlama datastatement of October 2). There is about $32 million left in his contracts. Blur was not spared, its locked value fell from around 200 million at the start of 2024 to 27 million.
A whole generation of Ethereum layers 2 under pressure
Blast joins a growing list. Kinto, another Layer 2, closed in fall 2025 after a hack. The market is also concentrated on a handful of players. Base, the Coinbase chain, openly attacks new territories like Robinhood Chain, when small networks have neither massive distribution nor their own use.
Everywhere, the same equation. Revenues depend on activity, costs are largely fixed, and many analysts doubt that the majority of rollups will survive the year. The layer 2 bet, long supported by incentives and airdrops, clashes with reality. The rest, between closures and absorptions, will be written in Ethereum news.
The deadline first. On October 26, the Blast interface will close to withdrawals; you will then have to go through the bridge contracts. Beyond this case, the closure reminds us that the question asked of layers 2 is no longer how much they promise, but how much they bring in. Ethereum is continuing its scaling, with a target of 200 million gas per block under study.
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