Blast to Shut Down After Raising $20 Million From Paradigm and Others in 2023 Ethereum Layer 2 network Blast announced that it will shut down, saying the ongoing cost of maintaining the chain now exceeds the revenue generated by the L2 and that it sees no credible path to becoming economically sustainable. Users are being asked to withdraw assets to Ethereum mainnet by October 26, with the withdrawal delay set to be reduced to 24 hours. After that date, assets will remain withdrawable through Blast’s bridge contracts on Ethereum L1. Blast launched in early access in November 2023 after raisi

Chainalysis Attributes Bitget’s $387M Hack to DPRK Actors, Traces Funds Across Four Chains Chainalysis said the $387 million Bitget hack was carried out by DPRK-linked threat actors. Within the first three hours, the stolen funds moved across Ethereum, XRP, Zcash and Tron through 23 transfers, with Ethereum and XRP accounting for 49.7% and 40.8% respectively. Investigators also traced tens of millions of dollars in stolen XRP through cross-chain liquidity protocols into Bitcoin over roughly a day and a half. The attack has pushed total DPRK-linked crypto thefts in 2026 above $1 billion. — lin

WuBlockchain Weekly: Vitalik Reimagines Ethereum, El Salvador Goes Onchain, HSBC Names RedCoin Vitalik Buterin outlines Ethereum’s evolution into a “cryptographic world computer,” El Salvador launches the Sivar national super app on Base, the SEC advances on-chain financing, tokenized securities and crypto custody rules, while HSBC unveils its Hong Kong stablecoin RedCoin and Morgan Stanley launches a Digital Asset Lab. This week also saw further momentum in MiCA reform, stablecoin regulation, tokenized finance, DeFi access, and institutional digital asset infrastructure. For the complete wee