Blast has announced plans to shut down its Layer network. Can users withdraw funds through their regular interface before October 26, 2026?

• October 26th is the deadline for withdrawing funds through the regular Blast interface.
• Blast indicates that the network maintenance costs exceed revenues, and there is no credible path for sustainable operation anymore.
• During the period when the team extracts the Lido assets held by Blast, the extraction will be suspended for about a week.
• After the deadline, can assets still be withdrawn through the bridge contract on the Ethereum mainnet?

In a announcement published on X on October 2nd, Blast requested users to transfer their assets to the Ethereum mainnet, including any balances held in Blast PWA. According to the team's notification, withdrawals through the regular interface will remain available until October 26th; thereafter, they will be temporarily suspended due to the processing of holdings related to Lido.

For users who missed the deadline on the interface, it is announced that assets can still be extracted by directly interacting with the bridge contract of Blast on Ethereum’s Layer1. The team stated that they will publish the instructions for this process before the deadline.

Before the delay is reduced to 24 hours, withdrawals for Blast will be suspended.

According to the shutdown plan, the team will first begin to extract the Lido assets held by Blast. This process is expected to take about a week. During this time, user withdrawals will be temporarily unavailable.

At the same time, the team plans to reduce the withdrawal delay to 24 hours. However, it is noted that as long as the Lido withdrawal process is still in progress, even with a shorter delay, the withdrawal function will not be restored.

Once this process is completed, the team indicates that withdrawals will be resumed, and a new 24-hour waiting period will be implemented. The requests will cover both the assets held on the network and the balance in Blast PWA. The Ethereum mainnet has been designated as the target chain.

The announcement distinguishes between the deadline for withdrawals through the regular interface and the method of restoring assets thereafter. According to the team's arrangements, on October 26th, the regular interface will be discontinued, and after that, users will need to interact directly with the Ethereum bridging contract for withdrawals.

In the same notice, the team strongly recommends that users complete withdrawals before October 26th, and promises to release detailed instructions for contract withdrawals prior to that date.

Operating costs have exceeded the revenue of Blast.

When explaining this decision, the team stated that the initial goal of launching Blast was to create a blockchain that could serve both users and developers while also achieving financial self-sufficiency. According to the announcement, the ongoing costs of maintaining the network operation have now exceeded the income generated by its Layer business.

The team stated that they can no longer see a “credible path” to make this chain economically sustainable.

Therefore, we made a difficult decision to gradually shut down Blast.

For users and developers who develop on or support this network, it is announced that the team's primary task is to ensure that the shutdown process is as smooth and safe as possible.

Previous reports described Blast as a network built by Pacman, the founder of Blur, and supported by Paradigm. In May 2025, crypto.news reported that Blast had ended its integration with Safe due to concerns regarding third-party risks and availability while preparing its own multi-signature wallet solution.

At that time, the team stated that users who had accessed multi-signature wallets through the Safe interface could use the BrahmaFi custody interface or manage their wallets independently. In an earlier announcement, Blast also mentioned plans to directly integrate the multi-signature feature into Blast Mobile in order to provide wallet access within their platform.

U.S. holders face different tax regulations when it comes to transfers and exchanges

For U.S. holders who transfer assets between their own accounts, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) states that transferring digital assets between a taxpayer's own wallets, addresses, or accounts generally does not constitute a taxable event. The agency notes that there are exceptions if the digital assets are used to pay for the fees associated with performing the transfer service, or if they are withheld to cover those fees.

In the guidelines regarding service payments, IRS indicates that using digital assets for consumption constitutes a disposition, which may result in capital gains or losses. According to this institution, this treatment applies regardless of whether such payments are also considered as transaction costs of digital assets.

For transactions involving the exchange of assets rather than the transfer of the same asset between one's own accounts, IRS indicates that converting digital assets into other forms of property, including assets that differ substantially in type or degree, may result in capital gains or losses. The guidelines of this institution treat such exchanges differently from transfers between a taxpayer's own wallets.

Blast The ecosystem has previously experienced project withdrawals and revenue pressures.

In the Blast ecosystem, Fantasy Top also announced its closure earlier this year. A report on May 21st mentioned the shutdown of Fantasy Top; the trading card game team stated that they would refund each dollar invested by pre-seed and seed investors at a 1:1 ratio.

According to the report, Fantasy Top indicates that its operations have been self-financed for two and a half years without using any investor funds. The team also stated that they have returned approximately 20 million US dollars to the community through ETH, BLAST, as well as rewards distributed to players and participants.

When describing the project's revenue history, the Fantasy Top team stated that approximately 70% of their lifetime income came from the first month after going online. The report also cited data from DeFiLlama which indicated that the project received a $4.25 million seed round of financing supported by Dragonfly Capital and Manifold, and that the cumulative transaction fees on Blast amounted to $7.05 million.

An earlier exit involved Pacmoon, which was described at that time as the meme coin with the largest market value on Blast. A report in August 2024 detailed the plan to migrate Pacmoon to Solana; prior to this, team member Lamboland complained about Blast's lack of support for the native token and its community.

According to the migration plan reported at that time, Pacmoon will adopt the name ARMY on Solana. The team requires existing holders to destroy the PAC tokens by the deadline of August 14th in order to obtain an empty investment slot for ARMY.