Update. Blynk is now working …
Things I did:
1. I purchase Blynk energy and redid my Blynk QR Code using the latest QR scan found in Github repo
2. Downgraded firmware to V 1.0.7
3. rebooted arduino at the device itself – it beeped with a 4 sound sequence and then eventually stopped beeping. I was expecting it to revert to AP mode, but it didn’t. It simply rebooted. Once I did this, Blynk started working again.
So I will monitor this going forward. I hope that this will remain stable.