Blast shuts Ethereum layer 2 and opens 12-month fund recovery

Blast officially shut down its Ethereum layer-2 network on November 4, 2026, and opened a recovery portal that will remain available until November 4, 2027, according to the project’s announcement on X.

Eligible assets include ETH, wrapped ETH and USDB associated with Blast wallets, pending withdrawals and Blast Mobile accounts. Recovery smart contracts on Ethereum mainnet will make the payments, shifting claims processing away from the discontinued network.

What can users recover through the portal?

Users begin by searching for an address that previously held ETH, wrapped ETH or USDB on Blast. The system also accepts claims submitted through an authorized wallet, including the owner of a Safe account or another smart wallet approved to act for the original address.

Blast Mobile follows a separate procedure because its app addresses do not exist on Ethereum. Users must import the application’s seed phrase into a compatible wallet, such as MetaMask or Rabby, and then connect that wallet to the recovery website. The connected wallet displays an address different from the one previously shown in Blast Mobile.

The recovery page carries a direct security warning: “Only ever type your seed phrase into your wallet app, never into a website.” The instruction is especially relevant to the mobile procedure, which requires users to import the phrase into an external wallet but says the recovery site itself must never receive it.

How much remained in Blast’s bridge?

DeFiLlama data showed that Blast’s canonical bridge on Ethereum held approximately $6.51 million on November 3. The balance was roughly $41.04 million on October 26, an approximately 84% decline over that interval.

Another sharp move occurred between October 30 and October 31, when reported holdings fell from approximately $36.63 million to $6.59 million.

These figures represent assets remaining in the bridge, not the total value users have successfully recovered. The reported balance therefore does not measure the completion rate of recovery claims.

Why did Blast shut down the network?

Blast first announced the wind-down on October 2. The team said: “the economics of operating the chain no longer made sense” because maintenance costs exceeded revenue. The project had originally aimed to build a self-sustaining blockchain for users and developers, but the team could not identify a credible path toward making the network economically viable.

During the wind-down, Blast began removing its assets from Lido, a process it expected to take approximately one week. Withdrawals were temporarily frozen during that removal. The team later reduced the withdrawal delay to 24 hours and set October 26 as the final date for withdrawals through the standard Blast interface.

After October 26, users could still withdraw assets through Blast’s bridge contracts on Ethereum.

What did the shutdown coincide with?

Katana, a DeFi-focused blockchain, announced on October 26 that it had taken a snapshot of Blast users and wallet activity, then repeated the announcement on November 4. Katana said the snapshot would provide additional boosts to wallets active on its network.

Separately, Cryptopolitan reported that Arbitrum One recorded its highest daily active-address count since July 18, 2024, on October 28, reaching 1,087,999 addresses. Polygon PoS led the tracked networks with 1,634,452 active addresses; Base ranked second with 1,457,258, and Arbitrum placed third.

With Blast’s network shut down, the binding deadline for users is November 4, 2027, when the stated recovery window ends and eligible claims must be completed through the Ethereum-based contracts.