PANews reported on October 2 that Blast announced on X that it will cease operations. Blast stated that its goal at launch was to build a self-sustaining chain for users and developers, but the economics of operating the chain are no longer reasonable: the ongoing cost of maintaining Blast exceeds the revenue generated by the L2, and there is no credible path to making the chain's economics sustainable, so it has decided to gradually shut down Blast.
Blast said its top priority now is to make the shutdown as smooth and safe as possible, requiring all users to withdraw their assets from Blast to the Ethereum mainnet, including balances in the Blast PWA. To facilitate withdrawals, it will reduce the withdrawal delay to 24 hours. As part of the shutdown process, Blast will first withdraw its Lido assets, which is expected to take about a week, during which withdrawals will be temporarily unavailable even though the withdrawal delay has been reduced to 24 hours. After this process is complete, withdrawals will resume with the new 24-hour delay. Users need to withdraw funds through the normal Blast interface before October 26, 2026. After that, assets can still be withdrawn, but users will need to interact directly with the Blast bridge contract on Ethereum L1, and Blast will publish detailed instructions before that date.