Blast Shuts Down as Unsustainable Costs Outpace Revenue

The Ethereum layer 2 network Blast, created by Blur founder Tieshun 'Pacman' Roquerre, is shutting down due to unsustainable costs. The team announced that maintaining the chain now exceeds the revenue generated from it, making it economically unsuitable. As a result, users are being asked to move their assets back to Ethereum mainnet by October 26th.

The shutdown process will involve withdrawing Blast's assets from Lido and then pausing withdrawals for about a week while its team pulls out. This is expected to take one week. Once the withdrawal delay is cut to 24 hours, users can withdraw their funds through the regular Blast interface until October 26th. After that date, they will need to interact directly with Blast's bridge contracts on Ethereum.

The network drew significant attention and investment before its mainnet launch in February 2024, with $300 million deposited within days of opening for deposits. At its peak, it held around $2.26 billion in total value locked, but this has since decreased to about $32 million. The BLAST token's market cap is now around $20 million, down significantly from its initial valuation of $2 billion.