Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, Pudgy Penguins-backed Abstract said it will shut down after losing tens of millions of dollars without finding product-market fit, a CoinShares survey found digital assets now make up about 10% of affluent investors’ portfolios and Ethereum’s EEZ tested an atomic transaction between the mainnet and a layer-2 network as developers work to reduce ecosystem fragmentation.

Pudgy Penguins-backed Abstract to shut down after “tens of millions” in losses

Abstract, a consumer-focused Ethereum layer-2 blockchain built by Pudgy Penguins’ parent company Igloo Inc., said Tuesday it will shut down this year after struggling to scale and find product-market fit.

In an X post, Abstract said its focus on “consumer crypto” ultimately proved to be an unsustainable business model. Abstract launched its mainnet in January 2025 with the aim of driving consumer crypto adoption by targeting mainstream entertainment. For users, it aimed to strip away many of the complexities that traditional blockchains require.

“Unknown to most, Igloo, Inc. had been funding Abstract over the last 18 months,” said Luca Netz, CEO of Igloo Inc. “After losing tens of millions of dollars over two years, building consumer products, assembling an all-star team, onboarding some of the biggest brands in the world, and building a community of millions, we still had not found product-market fit.”

Abstract’s shutdown highlights the limits of its consumer-first strategy. Both Abstract and Netz cited minimal institutional crossover, alongside thin liquidity and a restricted DeFi ecosystem, as constraints on growth.

Crypto is becoming a 10% portfolio bet for wealthy investors

Digital assets now account for roughly 10% of the average portfolio among affluent investors surveyed by CoinShares, and most existing holders plan to increase their exposure this year.

The survey covered 2,230 investors with at least $500,000 in investable assets across the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. Digital asset ownership exceeded 50% in every market and reached roughly 70% in four.

The bigger shift may be how investors view crypto. Long-term appreciation and diversification ranked as the leading reasons for owning digital assets, while speculation came last. Just 6% of respondents primarily identified as short-term traders.

February’s market downturn also failed to reverse those plans. In every country surveyed, more investors said the sell-off increased their interest in crypto than reduced it. At least 85% of existing holders in five countries plan to add to their positions this year.

Bitcoin remains the main entry point, with 80% of crypto investors holding BTC. But it is rarely their only exposure: 89% of Bitcoin investors also owned other digital assets.

EEZ tests atomic L1-to-L2 transaction in push to unify Ethereum

The EEZ has tested an atomic transaction between Ethereum mainnet and a layer-2 network, according to a project contributor.

On Tuesday, EEZ contributor Eduardo Antuña Díez shared the transaction and called it the “first atomic cross-chain” L1-to-L2 transaction. The transaction’s logs record a cross-chain call carrying 0.001 Ether (ETH) and a state update for a rollup.

In an atomic transaction, linked actions across networks either all succeed or are all reversed if any part fails.

In March, developers behind the EEZ said the framework was designed to let rollups interact with each other and Ethereum mainnet within a single transaction, without relying on bridges. The project aims to reconnect liquidity and applications spread across separate L2 networks.

Gnosis co-founder Friederike Ernst previously told Cointelegraph that the lack of synchronous composability forces protocols to maintain separate deployments across L2s, fragmenting liquidity into multiple markets.