Blast Shuts Down

An Ethereum Layer 2 that once held more than $2 billion is shutting down because it now costs more to run than it earns.

In today’s Daily Crypto Roundup , Blast confirms it is winding down its Ethereum Layer 2 after admitting there is “no credible path” to making the network economically sustainable.

Blast users now face a temporary withdrawal pause while assets are withdrawn from Lido, with October 26 becoming the crucial deadline before the normal user interface disappears. Assets should still remain recoverable afterwards through Ethereum bridge contracts — but the process becomes significantly more complicated.

We explain what happened to Blast, how its value locked collapsed from more than $2 billion to roughly $32 million, what users need to do next and why this shutdown could become an important warning for smaller Layer 2 networks built around incentives rather than sustainable fee revenue.

Bitcoin has also given back Friday’s jobs-data rally, falling back below $85,000 as the wider crypto market turns red. We break down the important BTC levels around $82,225, $83,923, $85,000 and $86,571 heading into Monday’s ETF trading session.

Elsewhere, US community banks have launched a lawsuit over federal crypto trust-bank charters, arguing that crypto firms could gain national banking privileges without carrying the same obligations or consumer protections as traditional deposit-taking banks.

There is better news for NEAR Intents. The project says the full $3.8 million taken in its recent exploit has now been returned, with on-chain transactions supporting the recovery. But the money coming back does not erase the original vulnerability, and users are still waiting for full service restoration and a complete reconciliation.

Finally, XRP Seoul brought Ripple ecosystem representatives together with major Korean financial institutions including Kbank, Kyobo Securities, Woori Bank and JB Bank. But we separate conference appearances from genuine adoption — because no named bank has yet announced a live XRP Ledger deployment from the event. Today’s biggest stories:

These notes are supplied by Crypto News Today and are not a transcript. No separate source links were supplied with this edition.