What is Blur?
Launched in October 2022, Blur is an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace that has taken the NFT trading landscape by storm with over 60% of NFT trading volume market share.
Key Takeaways
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The Blur ecosystem consists of an NFT marketplace, aggregator, and lending platform.
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Even though Blur launched less than a year ago, it has quickly surpassed OpenSea in terms of volume.
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Blur is used by many NFT traders due to the low fees, high speed, and unique features such as NFT floor depth charts.
Blur has only been around for eight months, but the NFT marketplace already sees volume surpassing that of OpenSea.
Source: https://www.footprint.network/@NFT/NFT-Market-overview?series_date=past90days
Unlike other marketplaces, Blur was designed for professional traders. It boasts a variety of trader-friendly features, such as low fees, speed, collection sweeping, NFT analytics, and more. As a decentralized marketplace, the platform also has its own governance token, BLUR which gives users voting rights. Other than the Blur marketplace, users can also use Blur’s aggregators and NFT lending protocol.
What is Blur’s Aggregator?
Blur also has an NFT aggregator platform that combines NFTs from other marketplaces into their interface. With a unique target audience, Blur’s aggregator has several notable features that many traders utilize.
Who Is Behind Blur?
Blur is backed by Paradigm, a research-driven technology investment firm that has also invested in other notable crypto projects like Uniswap and Coinbase.
One of the co-founders behind Blur is Tieshun Roquerre. On Twitter, Roquerre prefers to be known as ‘Pacman’. The 24-year-old has also previously founded Namebase and helped raise 5M in funding for this project. Just 3 years later, Namebase was acquired by Namecheap.
Why is Blur Unique?
Unlike other NFT marketplaces, Blur is designed for professional traders, with most of the volume attributed to whales using the platform. In the following section, I will be talking about the unique features of this ecosystem that differentiates it from other platforms.
Speed
As users vie to make their trades, speed can sometimes mean the difference between a loss or profit. With Blur’s slogan being “Ditch slow. Execute trades faster and make more money on Blur”, Blur claims to be the fastest NFT marketplace, giving their users an advantage. Designed for professional traders, Blur claims that their enhanced speed allows traders to snipe and execute trades faster compared to any other marketplace.
Marketplace Fees
Blur currently follows a zero-fee marketplace structure where NFT traders can trade NFTs on their platform without paying a transaction fee. While Blur encourages a marketwide royalty rate of 0.5% on their NFTs, this is not enforced. Users can establish their own preferred royalty rates at their own discretion. This proves cost-effective for professional traders who deal with large trading volumes.
Trader-friendly Features
Blur also boasts an array of features that can help traders to make more informed decisions before making a transaction. These features include collection sweeping, NFT analytics, customizable gas fees, and in-depth floor charts for each NFT collection.
Incentives and Airdrops
Blur also has a dedicated percentage of its native token supply set aside for incentives. For example, when users decide to list their NFTs with royalties, they receive loyalty points which can be exchanged for BLUR.
On 14 February 2023, Blur held its highly anticipated multi-million dollar airdrop, where over 115 thousand recipients were eligible to receive the token. With at least 3 wallets receiving more than 1.5M in tokens, Blur’s airdrops garnered large social media traction, especially with users needing to Tweet about their airdrop to claim the amount.
Keungz on Twitter received 610659 BLUR as part of the airdrop. At the time of the tweet (15 February), each BLUR token was roughly worth $0.65, amounting to around $397,000.
Money printer go BLURRRRR. I just received 610658.739770709 $BLUR from @BLUR_io’s Season 1 drop. Season 2 begins NOW. Start listing and bidding on Blur to get a head start on Season 2 rewards. pic.twitter.com/7Y3i6m8MMW
— Keungz (@keung) February 14, 2023
Blur is also currently in the process of its Season 2 airdrop.
What is Blend (Blur Lend)?
In May 2023, Blur introduced Blend, their own peer-to-peer perpetual lending protocol. The platform allows NFT owners to borrow ETH while using their NFTs as collateral. Similar to a Mortgage, Blend will also offer down payment installments when purchasing NFTs.
Unlike traditional protocols, Blend loans have no expiration date or fixed rates, allowing positions to remain open at the user’s discretion. Blend also does not require an oracle, which allows users to determine their interest rates.
Source: https://dappradar.com/blog/blur-dominates-82-of-the-nft-lending-market
As of May 2023, Blend comprises 82% of the borrowing volume among NFT lending protocols.
Tokenomics
BLUR is the ERC-20 native token of the NFT marketplace Blur. As Blur is a decentralized and community-run platform, holding the native token will give users voting rights to implement measures or improvements to the platform. Holders can also delegate their tokens and voting rights to another party on their behalf. The more tokens that a person holds or is delegated, the more voting rights they hold.
According to The Blur Foundation, 3 billion BLUR has been minted and will be made available over the next 4-5 years.
51% of the total supply tokens are allocated to Blur’s community members – 12% were airdropped to users, and the remaining 39% will be distributed to users through contributor grants, community initiatives, and incentive programs.
Source: https://docs.blur.foundation/tokenomics
The remaining tokens are allocated to investors, contributors, and advisors – which would be vested over 4-5 years.
Source: https://docs.blur.foundation/tokenomics
BLUR Token Unlock
In anticipation of Blur’s token unlock happening on the 15th of June 2023, the price of BLUR is down 21% in the last seven days. Roughly making up 40% of the circulating supply, a whopping 196M worth of tokens will be unlocked. Some investors are worried that when the tokens unlock, holders might dump their tokens and cause the price to plummet.
The one and only cliff unlocks $BLUR, 40% of the total supply 📈
— Token Unlocks (@Token_Unlocks) June 13, 2023
$ 196 million will be unlocked in 2 days 🔥🔥@blur_io
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As of today (16 June), BLUR is trading at $0.32 per token.
Blur vs OpenSea
If you know NFTs, you know OpenSea. While Blur has the highest volume among NFT marketplaces, OpenSea is dominating the NFT marketplace with the most users and trades.
Source: https://dune.com/hildobby/NFTs
*Source: Foresight News
As seen in the table above, both Blur and OpenSea differ in different aspects.
So, Will Blur Replace OpenSea?
In 2022, OpenSea also acquired its own aggregator – previously named Gem then renamed OpenSea Pro. The company claims that it is the “most powerful NFT aggregator” and can track listings from over 170 marketplaces. Similar to Blur, OpenSea Pro boasts a selection of sophisticated features that are aimed at helping professional traders or collectors.
At present, it remains uncertain to determine if Blur might one day replace OpenSea. Given the nature of the cryptocurrency and NFTs space, companies constantly have to evolve and compete for dominance. Ultimately, only time will tell which company will come out on top.
Conclusion
In terms of features, both Blur and OpenSea possess their own distinct advantages. Ultimately the choice of which platform to use depends on each individual’s own needs and demands. For casual NFT collectors, some might prefer to continue using OpenSea due to familiarity with the interface or even their wide range of NFT collections. Others like professional traders may choose to use Blur for their competitive fees and in-depth analytic features.
Hwee Yan has been involved in the cryptocurrency space since 2021. Currently pursuing a degree in Linguistics and Multilingual studies at Nanyang Technological University, she is a writer who is mainly interested in NFTs, crypto trends and memecoins. Follow the author on Twitter @cryptohy8
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