Blast shuts down due to maintenance costs exceeding revenue

The Ethereum Layer 2 network Blast announced its closure on October 2. The team stated that maintenance costs have exceeded Layer 2 revenue, and they see no path to making the chain economically sustainable. The founder is Tieshun Roquerre of Blur, publicly known as Pacman.

The chain launched in November 2023 after completing a $20 million funding round led by Paradigm and Standard Crypto. It was designed to automatically distribute earnings from staked Ethereum and real-world assets to users. Before the mainnet launch, over $2 billion was locked, peaking at approximately $2.26 billion in June 2024, with DeFiLlama currently reporting about $32 million.

In the past month, on-chain revenue was about $1,793, with a peak of around $3.5 million in June 2024. On the day of shutdown, DeFiLlama showed 24-hour fees of $124 and revenue of $110. The application side also had about $20,800 in 24-hour revenue, but almost entirely from a defunct lending protocol. L2Beat reported collateral value at about $90 million, with around $50 million entering through the official bridge.

Withdrawals will start with Lido assets, expected to take about a week, during which withdrawals will be paused. After completion, withdrawals will resume with a 24-hour delay, and users can use the original interface until October 26. After that, funds will remain but must directly call the bridge contract on Ethereum. On Friday, BLAST dropped 17%, with a market cap of about $23 million.

The officials did not disclose detailed costs for nodes, personnel, and data availability, nor did they announce the treasury balance. Externally, monthly revenue is estimated at about $3,300, minus subscription and mainnet fees, which is an estimate, not a financial report. The post mentioned that tokens have sold out and that the team is about to start a third venture, which also has not been announced.

Buyers are users who need to withdraw about $32 million in locked and bridged assets, while sellers are the team stopping sorting and revenue distribution. The event was driven by the shutdown announcement. Funds will return from Blast to the Ethereum mainnet, benefiting addresses receiving withdrawals and the mainnet continuing to charge fees, while the token with a market cap of about $23 million and applications charging on this chain are under pressure.

Source: Public Information