Blast has officially powered down its Ethereum layer-2 network and launched a recovery website for users who still have assets stranded on the chain, giving them a 12-month window to reclaim their funds.
The shutdown took effect on Nov. 4, with claims remaining open through Nov. 4, 2027. In a post on X, the team said the portal will stay live for the full year and designated that date as the final support deadline.
Balances of ETH, wrapped ETH and USDB sitting in a Blast wallet, along with pending withdrawals and funds held in Blast Mobile, can be claimed through the site. Payouts are made directly from recovery smart contracts deployed on Ethereum mainnet.
Users locate their holdings by searching for an address that held ETH, wrapped ETH or USDB on Blast. The tool also recognizes cases where a separate wallet, such as the owner of a Safe or another smart wallet, is authorized to claim on that address's behalf.
Blast Mobile requires a different route, since those addresses do not exist on Ethereum. Mobile users must import their app seed phrase into a wallet such as MetaMask or Rabby and connect it, which will display an address different from the one shown in Blast Mobile. The recovery page cautions users to enter seed phrases only inside a wallet application and never on a website.
The wind-down was set in motion on Oct. 2, when the team announced it would close the chain. "The economics of operating the chain no longer make sense," the team wrote at the time, noting that the cost of maintaining Blast had surpassed the revenue the L2 generated.
Blast initially pulled its assets out of Lido, a process expected to take roughly a week, and froze withdrawals in the interim. The team later shortened the withdrawal delay to 24 hours and set Oct. 26 as the last day to exit through the standard Blast interface. Assets could still be moved out through the Blast bridge contracts on Ethereum after that point.
The original announcement said Blast launched with the aim of building a self-sustaining chain for users and developers, but the team concluded it had no credible path to making the network economically viable.
Bridge balances have drained sharply. According to DeFiLlama, Blast's canonical bridge on Ethereum held about $6.51 million as of Nov. 3, down from roughly $41.04 million on Oct. 26, a decline of about 84%. The figure reflects what remains in the bridge rather than what users have already recovered. The bridge slid to about $6.59 million on Oct. 31 from about $36.63 million a day earlier.
Note: Figures from DeFiLlama reflect assets remaining in the bridge, not amounts already reclaimed by users.
Elsewhere in the ecosystem, DeFi-focused blockchain Katana said on Oct. 26 that it had taken a snapshot of Blast users and wallet activity, and it repeated the snapshot claim on Nov. 4. Katana also promised additional boosts for wallets active on its network.
Activity has shifted toward rival chains. Arbitrum One recorded its busiest day since July 18, 2024, on Oct. 28, with 1,087,999 daily active addresses, according to Cryptopolitan. Polygon PoS led all tracked chains that day with 1,634,452 active addresses, followed by Base at 1,457,258 and Arbitrum in third place.
The closure marks the end of one of the more prominent layer-2 ventures of the past cycle, and it puts pressure on remaining L2 operators to demonstrate a viable revenue model as competition for users and activity intensifies. For holders, the immediate priority is the one-year claims window, after which unclaimed balances may no longer be recoverable through the official portal.
