After Blast, Abstract is shutting down too: The fate of L2 today might just be the fate of Perp DEX tomorrow In just 4 days, two Ethereum L2s announced their shutdown. Blast closed because operating costs exceeded revenue. Abstract’s story hits harder—Igloo funded it for 18 months, losing tens of millions of dollars, and in the end, they even gave up on issuing tokens to recover losses. Abstract had over 400K users, 325M transactions, 144+ applications, and big brands like Disney and Red Bull Racing on board. Before shutting down, there were still nearly $48M in assets on-chain. But due to shallow liquidity, DeFi not taking off, institutions staying away, and users and transactions failing to generate enough profit to sustain the chain long-term, they had to call it quits. L2 meets reality: The market needs scaling, but it doesn’t need this many L2s. As the tech stack matures, launching a chain is no longer a moat in itself. What’s truly scarce are users, assets, liquidity, distribution, and the ability to generate sustainable revenue. Without these, no matter how impressive your TPS, wallet numbers, or transaction counts are, it all just ends up as server bills. L2s made it, and L2s broke it.