Author: Frank, PANews
On October 2, the Blast official account issued a brief announcement announcing that it would cease operations and urged all users to withdraw their assets back to the Ethereum mainnet before October 26.
This star L2, which once attracted more than 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in deposits before the mainnet was launched, and whose TVL once exceeded 2 billion U.S. dollars, had only 1,793 U.S. dollars in network revenue last month. Behind this is a star project driven by airdrops, and commercial losses after the income cannot cover the maintenance costs.
My monthly income is less than US$2,000 and I can’t afford an L2
The official reason for the shutdown given by Blast is straightforward: the ongoing cost of maintaining Blast exceeds the revenue generated by L2, and no credible sustainable path can be seen. This sentence sounds like an official cliché, but when the numbers are spread out, it is a very concrete account.
According to DeFiLlama data, Blast’s network revenue peaked in June 2024, at about $3.5 million. That's when it's most beautiful. As of the latest month, this number was only $1,793. From US$3.5 million to US$1,793, a decrease of 99.95%, the monthly income is less than US$2,000.
Running an L2 is not free. Development, infrastructure, and security all require continued investment. CoinDesk specifically mentioned in the report that recent vulnerability exploitation incidents have drawn more attention to security spending, and competitors such as Base are converting exchange users and developer ecology into on-chain activities, making it more difficult for small and medium-sized chains to compete for developers, users, and transaction fees. Blast’s monthly income of US$1,793 is indeed unsustainable within this cost structure.
The main sources of revenue for this chain are transaction fees and revenue generated from network activities. When users no longer come to trade, the income is cut off. The gap between US$3.5 million and US$1,793 is not a problem of a certain data caliber, but a direct result of the actual departure of users and funds.
From $2 billion to $32 million: The departure of users and funds
Blast’s TVL will peak in June 2024 at over $2 billion. That number is now about $32 million. Shrunk by more than 98%. Even compared with US$67 million in August 2025, it has dropped by more than half.
The deserted activity on the chain is more intuitive. As of October 2, Blast has only 2,648 active addresses in 24 hours, 48 new addresses, DEX trading volume of 63,766 US dollars, and 24-hour payment fees of only 378.15 US dollars. For comparison, on March 1, 2024, the day the mainnet was launched, there were 37,000 wallets on the Blast network that executed nearly 810,000 transactions. From 37,000 to 2,648, active addresses dropped by 92.8%.
Although funds are still on the bridge, they are no longer entering DeFi. Bridge TVL is approximately US$117.56 million, and DeFi TVL is only US$32.27 million, a difference of US$85.4 million. This gap at least shows that the scale of assets remaining in the Blast system is significantly higher than the scale of lock-ups actually entering the DeFi protocol.
The BLAST token has fallen by about 98% since its issuance, and fell by about 19% after the shutdown announcement.
Putting these numbers together, the Blast chain is close to shutting down. Users no longer come to trade, developers no longer come to deploy, and token prices continue to fall. From US$2 billion to US$32 million, not only the numbers have shrunk, but also all the foundations for the chain's survival.
Once 2.3 billion US dollars were rushed to save money, the points airdrop carnival came to an end
Two and a half years ago, Blast was a different story.
Pacman, the founder who is familiar with Internet marketing, has achieved great success in the NFT track by relying on the airdrop of the NFT trading platform Blur. Later, he wanted to copy this marketing gameplay to the most popular L2 track at the time. In November 2023, Blast completed US$20 million in financing, with investors including Paradigm, Standard Crypto, eGirl Capital, and angel investors such as Andrew Kang, Hasu, and Larry Cermak. Early access opens the same month.
Blast’s positioning is very attractive: it is the only L2 in Ethereum with native income from ETH and stablecoins. User balances will compound interest automatically, ETH pledge income will be returned to users and DApps, stablecoins will be deposited into MakerDAO and other protocols after bridging, and income will be transferred back through USDB.
This design, coupled with the invitation system and points airdrop, quickly created FOMO. Participants receive Blast points, double points can be obtained for bridging funds within 7 days, and 50% of the airdrops are allocated to developers. Huobi Incubator researcher 0xLoki commented at the time that it is not new for users to pledge assets on the public chain to obtain income, but Blast can avoid "middlemen making the difference". Sleepy, founder of the NFT project Weirdo Ghost Gang, believes that the most special thing about Blast is that it can provide native income for ETH and stablecoins, which is "eye-catching."
Before the mainnet is officially launched on March 1, 2024, users have deposited more than $1.1 billion in assets, partly for potential token airdrops. On the night of the mainnet launch, the accumulated funds attracted reached US$2.3 billion, more than 60% of Blast TVL was bridged to the mainnet, and Bridge held more than US$1.46 billion of stETH, ETH and DAI. On the day the mainnet went online, 37,000 wallets executed nearly 810,000 transactions.
There were also different voices at the time. Liu Feng, former editor-in-chief of Lianwen, said that Blast and Blur have "the same pyramid scheme flavor" and believes that the points system, invitation codes and branded airdrops are Paradigm's regular marketing techniques. Investor brain genius believes that people only participate for airdrops, and Paradigm has gamified functions that the community does not need. Looking back now, these criticisms point to a key issue: how much users will actually remain after the airdrop is distributed.
Cryptocurrency is facing a wave of closures, with about 99 projects shutting down in 2026
Blast is not alone.
According to a RootData report, as of late July 2026, approximately 99 crypto projects have been included in the shutdown list in 2026, covering centralized exchanges, wallets, DeFi, Layer-2, NFT, AI, infrastructure and other fields. About 176 to 177 projects will be shut down throughout 2025. The monthly average in the first seven months of 2026 is about 14. At this rate, the number will reach about 170 for the whole year, which is comparable to the wave of closures last year.
The list of recent closures includes the exchanges CoinEx, BitMart, BitMEX, and AscendEX, as well as the Layer-2 protocol Loopring, the DeFi project Goldfinch, and the tool product Zapper. Reasons for closure include: more picky venture capital, unsustainable token-incentive business model, declining user growth and revenue, and intensifying industry consolidation. Centralized exchanges are also under pressure from increased regulatory scrutiny and rising compliance costs.
The competitive landscape on the L2 track is particularly cruel. According to L2BEAT data, Rollups has a total locked position of US$34.18 billion, including US$15.92 billion in Base Chain and US$11.51 billion in Arbitrum One. Blast’s bridged TVL is $117.56 million, accounting for only 0.34% of the total locked position, equivalent to 0.74% of Base. Base relies on exchange users to convert on-chain activities. Robinhood also launched its own L2 this year, and users and developers of small and medium-sized chains are constantly being drained away.
The closure of Blast is just a microcosm of this wave of eliminations. It once raised US$2.3 billion based on expected airdrops. However, when the airdrops were fulfilled, users left, and the revenue dropped to an average of US$1,793 per month, the chain's business could no longer continue. Each of the 99 projects on the shutdown list has a different story, but the core ledger is the same: revenue cannot support costs, and airdrops cannot retain users.