DeFi Protocols Shut Down Amid Economic Concerns as September Losses Soar

Three DeFi protocols - Blast, Balancer, and Abracadabra - announced plans to shut down this week. According to reports, Blast cited 'economic sustainability' concerns for its decision to close its Ethereum Layer 2, leaving around $63.5 million in the bridge. Users have until October 26 to withdraw their funds through the normal interface.

Balancer holders voted overwhelmingly (99.2%) to wind down the protocol and reject an official fork. Abracadabra proposed retiring its stablecoin MIM at roughly four cents on the dollar, which would write SPELL to zero. Meanwhile, Drift opened claims for its April exploit with a recovery pool covering about 1% of verified losses.

Other news in the DeFi space includes MetaMask pulling its validators out of Lido after an infrastructure compromise. NEAR Intents lost $3.8 million but recovered it within 24 hours after naming a deadline. Chainalysis attributed the $387 million Bitget theft to North Korea, and CertiK counted $766.4 million in September losses.