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Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

Ethereum layer-2 network Blast is shutting down after its operating costs exceeded the revenue generated by the chain.In a Friday post on X, Blast said it sees no “credible path” to making the network economically sustainable and asked users to withdraw their assets to Ethereum mainnet.“We launched Blast with the goal of building a self-sustaining chain for users and developers,” the team said. “Unfortunately, the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense.”Source: BlastThe network will reduce its withdrawal delay to 24 hours, though withdrawals will be temporarily unavailable while Blast unwinds its Lido assets, a process expected to take about a week.Users will have until Oct. 26 to withdraw through Blast’s interface. After that, assets will remain accessible, but withdrawals will require users to interact directly with the Blast bridge contracts on Ethereum.Blast said it will publish instructions for withdrawing directly through the bridge contracts ahead of the Oct. 26 cutoff and urged users to move their assets to Ethereum mainnet before then.Related: Stablecoins can drain from banks and nations at lightning speedBlast emerged from Blur’s NFT boomBlast was founded by Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre, the founder of NFT marketplace Blur, which launched in October 2022 and quickly challenged OpenSea by targeting professional traders with token incentives. By the end of 2022, Blur had surpassed then-leading NFT marketplace OpenSea in trading volume and extended its lead in early 2023, fueled in part by its token airdrop and trader rewards.Roquerre unveiled Blast in November 2023 with native yield on Ether (ETH) and stablecoins and a points program tied to an anticipated token airdrop. The strategy helped attract more than $2 billion in deposits before its mainnet launched in February 2024.Blast’s DeFi TVL has fallen more than 98% since its June 2024 peak. Source: DefiLlamaHowever, Blast’s growth proved difficult to sustain amid a broader downturn in the NFT market. Its DeFi total value locked has declined steadily since peaking at roughly $2.2 billion in June 2024, falling by more than 98% since then, according to DeFiLlama data.Blur has undergone a similar decline. Its total value locked, which rose above $200 million at its early-2024 peak, now stands at about $27 million.Magazine: Furious debate about THORChain vs NEAR shows idealism has limits

Nearly three-quarters of major UK financial institutions expect tokenization to reshape financial services, as banks and asset managers increasingly explore blockchain-based infrastructure for payments, settlement and liquidity management.The finding comes from an annual survey by Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s largest financial services provider, which polled 100 senior decision-makers across major UK banks, insurers, asset managers and financial sponsors.Faster payments and settlement emerged as the biggest potential benefit, cited by 60% of respondents, while 41% pointed to improved collateral and liquidity management.Lloyds said moving assets and payments onto digital infrastructure could also free up capital and liquidity tied up in financial transactions, allowing institutions to deploy those resources elsewhere.“The next phase is about turning those individual use cases into infrastructure that works at scale, with the interoperability and common standards needed to connect digital and traditional markets,” said Rob Hale, co-head of global markets at Lloyds.Lloyds has also tested the technology directly. Earlier this year, the bank worked with Archax and Canton Network on what it described as the UK’s first public blockchain transaction using tokenized deposits to purchase a tokenized UK government bond.Related: Crypto adoption blooming in Germany, while UK is falling ‘behind,’ says CoinShares researcherUK builds infrastructure for tokenized financeThe survey comes as UK policymakers push to move tokenization beyond pilot projects and into the country’s financial infrastructure.The Bank of England proposed extending its core settlement infrastructure toward near-24/7 availability in May, while a subsequent government payments blueprint called for tokenized and traditional forms of money to operate within an interoperable payments system.In July, a government-backed industry task force estimated that leadership in tokenized finance could add as much as 33 billion British pounds ($44 billion) to the UK’s annual economic output by 2035, while calling for the country’s first tokenized government bond by early 2027.UK tokenization economic opportunity by 2035. Source: UK Wholesale Markets Digital StrategyThe UK has also sought greater coordination with the US on tokenized finance. That same month, the US and UK treasuries recommended creating a private-sector group to test cross-border uses of tokenized assets and urged US financial regulators and the Bank of England to identify shared approaches to their regulation.Magazine: Furious debate about THORChain vs NEAR shows idealism has limits