The Blast crypto network is closing down. After two years of operation, the team behind the Ethereum scaling network said the cost of keeping it running had grown larger than the money it brings in. Exchanges are now cutting ties — and users have only days left to move their funds.
What Blast said
Blast made the news public on October 2. In a short message, the team said the chain was built to pay for itself, but the economics of running it "no longer make sense." They added that they could not see a believable path to making it sustainable.
Blast is a layer-2 network on Ethereum. A layer-2 handles transactions away from the main Ethereum chain and then posts the results back to it. The idea is to make transactions faster and cheaper.
The project was started by Tieshun Roquerre, known as "Pacman," who also built the Blur NFT marketplace. In November 2023 the team raised $20 million, led by the venture firms Paradigm and Standard Crypto.
A long fall
Blast was once one of the hottest names in crypto. At its peak in June 2024, users had locked more than $2 billion worth of assets in the network. At that time it was earning around $3.5 million a month.
Today those numbers look very different. Locked assets have dropped to about $24 to $32 million. In recent months the network earned as little as $1,793 in a month.
The BLAST token has fallen about 99 percent from its highest price. It once traded near $0.03. Now it trades near $0.00024, with a total market value under $20 million.
Exchanges cut ties this week
Large exchanges are removing BLAST quickly. Coinbase will suspend trading of BLAST on October 20. Users must withdraw their assets before October 26.
In South Korea, Upbit will stop withdrawals over the Blast network on October 19 at 12:00 noon Korean time. Bithumb, the country’s other large exchange, has placed the token on its caution list.
Bybit has also announced the end of BLAST withdrawals on October 20. The normal Blast interface — the easy way to move funds — will close on October 26.
After October 26, users can still get their assets out, but they will have to deal directly with the network’s bridge contracts on Ethereum. The team said it will publish instructions before the deadline.
What users should do
Anyone with funds on Blast should move them to the Ethereum main network before October 26. There is one catch: withdrawals are briefly paused while the team unwinds positions held in Lido, a staking service. That process is expected to take about one week. After that, withdrawal times will drop to 24 hours.
The shutdown does not set a redemption value for the BLAST token. The token was the native asset of a network that is now closing.
A sign of consolidation
Blast is not the only project to shut down this year. Router Protocol, another crypto infrastructure project, burned 303 million of its tokens after it failed to turn its technology into a working business.
Analysts say smaller layer-2 networks face rising pressure. Running the security systems behind a network costs more every year, while large players like Coinbase and Robinhood are building their own networks and drawing users away. The trend points to consolidation: only the strongest and best-funded networks are likely to survive.
For anyone holding layer-2 assets, the lesson is simple. Watch the health of the networks you use, and keep an eye on official announcements. A shutdown can come fast — Blast’s users got 24 days.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
