Over the past 30 days, Blur, a relatively new NFT marketplace has surpassed OpenSea, an OG in the space in trading volume.

In this post, we’ll see the tactics Blur employed to steal the leading position and OpenSea’s reaction.

Also, we’ll learn about the features of the Blur marketplace and its native token, $BLUR.

Let’s get started!

Quick Access

• How Did Blur NFT Outperform OpenSea?
• What Is Blur NFT Marketplace and How Does It Work?
• How Blur NFT Marketplace Works
• What Is the BLUR Token?
• What Does the Future Hold for Blur?
• Conclusion

How Did Blur NFT Outperform OpenSea?

According to Dappradar.com, the Blur NFT marketplace has been leading in trading volume for the past 30 days but nobody seemed to notice.

It was not until Wednesday, Feb. 15, when data analytics platform Nansen.ai revealed that Blur overtook OpenSea in daily ETH trading volume that brows started to rise.

To make things clear, data scientist Hildebert Moulié created a Dune dashboard that shows Blur’s daily trading volume more than quadrupled following Blur’s release of a native token the day before.

So, what did Blur do differently?

While OpenSea requires traders to switch between tabs to see all of their account data, Blur places analytics, sales history, and more on a single page for a better user experience. 

Secondly, Blur charges zero fees while OpenSea was charging 2.5% fees for transactions.

Blur is both an NFT marketplace and aggregator and as such, it has more trading features than OpenSea, providing traders with deep analytics on NFTs’ rarity, and trading history. It is also faster because data updates are made every four seconds.

Additionally, traders benefit financially from Blur’s competitive gas fee structure and the Seaport feature that it uses to bypass OpenSea’s blocklist.

Moreover, Blur airdropped its BLUR token to 100,000 NFT traders while OpenSea is yet to launch a native token.

These are some reasons why Blur has attracted more trading volume in the past few weeks.

OpenSea’s Reaction To Blur’s Ascent

In an attempt to recover customers lost to Blur, OpenSea chose to

• Eliminate its 2.5% fee on sales for a limited time.
• Cut down creator royalty protections and enforce only a 0.5% mandatory creator royalty fee on NFT trades for projects that don’t have an on-chain enforcement method, although sellers can choose to pay a larger percentage. 

This on-chain enforcement tool blocks marketplaces that do not fully enforce creator royalty settings—including Blur. In other words, you cannot earn royalties from the two platforms at the same time.

But as mentioned earlier, Blur found a workaround to that blocklist in January, only helping it pull more and more users away in recent weeks. On-chain data points to a rapidly rising user count for Blur, and just the opposite for OpenSea.

As it stands, Blur has recommended that NFT creators block secondary trades on OpenSea, saying that it would only enforce full royalty settings for projects that banned OpenSea.

Info source: decrypt.co

It appears to be a marketplace battle that may never end. While OpenSea is claiming to protect the interest of investors; Blur is ensuring that it retains its share of the NFT market.

Moving on, let’s better understand the Blur NFT marketplace.

What is Blur NFT Marketplace and How Does It Work?

Blur is a distinctive NFT marketplace and aggregator that launched in October 2022 on the Ethereum blockchain. 

It was created by an anonymous developer called “PacmanBlur” (Twitter: @PacmanBlur).

He created Blur as a solution for pro traders who wish to trade NFTs quickly and easily.

Blur offers advanced analytics, excellent portfolio management capabilities, and the ability to compare NFTs on multiple marketplaces. These features offer better NFT trading experiences and could help traders maximize profits. 

Additionally, Blur operates faster NFT sweeps and snipes than other seemingly comparable marketplaces. 

Also, it has real-time price feeds, a sorting function based on price, a more intuitive interface, and no trading fees for NFT sales. 

Furthermore, as an aggregator, it connects to other marketplaces like X2Y2, OpenSea, and LooksRare to enable users to see the best prices.

Traders also get to view their digital assets through Blur’s portfolio tab. This tab provides information on rarity, value, profit and loss, and more.

How Blur NFT Marketplace Works

This platform is easy to use. All you need to do is to visit the website – blur.io and connect your MetaMask or WalletConnect wallet.

Once your wallet is connected, you can then upload and link your current NFT assets. 

What are the advantages of using Blur?

a. Blur is one of the fastest NFT aggregators and marketplaces.

b. It helps traders conduct profitable sweeps by providing a floor depth chart for each collection. Also, it bypasses NFTs that are pending, stolen, or suspicious. 

*Sweeping means that a trader is purchasing several of an NFT collection’s lowest-priced works. 

c. Blur offers different listing options including trait floor price listing, floor price listing, and ladder listing.

d. Blur provides a portfolio view where users can view all their activities and holdings.

e. Additionally, Blur allows creators to establish royalties for their assets when they list them on the marketplace. 

f. Interestingly, users who list NFTs with royalties benefit from loyalty points and can receive BLUR tokens as an incentive.

Let’s talk about the BLUR token in the next section.

What Is the BLUR Token?

BLUR is the governance token of the Blur NFT marketplace.

This token was issued to users of the platform via three airdrops.

The first BLUR airdrop was delivered in the form of Care Packages to users who were active with beta testing six months before the official Blur launch in October 2022. 

Secondly, another airdrop was given to traders who were actively listing on the marketplace through November 2022. 

Lastly, an airdrop was allocated to traders who placed bids on Blur through Feb 14, 2023, when the token officially launched.

Also, users were able to exchange their Care Packages for BLUR tokens on the launch date.

In total, Blur issued an airdrop of 360 million BLUR tokens — worth around $355M at the time of writing. 

Presently, 389,335,940 BLUR coins are in circulation, and the token is currently trading at $0.94 in the following exchanges: KuCoin, Uniswap, OKX, Bybit, etc.

So, is Blur (BLUR) a good investment? Read the next section to know what I think.

What Does the Future Hold for Blur?

Considering the current popularity of NFTs and the uniqueness of the Blur marketplace, the future looks bright.

Blur improved on poor interfaces on other popular trading platforms, a lack of access to analytical data and tools, and slow processing times, to win over professional traders. 

Additionally, Blur supports paying royalties to creatives by incentivizing those who pay royalties with additional BLUR tokens. This in a way exempts Blur from the recent criticism some marketplaces have received for making royalties optional.

Furthermore, it has raised over $14m from world-class investors and traders including Paradigm, 6529, Cozomo Medici, dhof, Bharat Krymo, Zeneca, OSF, MoonOverlord, icebergy, Deeze, Andy8052, Keyboard Monkey and many more. This shows a lot of trust in Blur.

As a result, many professional NFT traders have moved to Blur for their trading activities.

However, Blur’s massive traction may also be due to incentives like the airdrop of 360 million BLUR tokens.

Besides, a newbie may have a hard time using Blur because of its advanced features.

All the same, the project seems promising but DYOR before investing.

Conclusion

We have now come to the end of this review. I hope it was worth your time.

Blur offers better NFT trading experiences to help traders optimize profits.

So, tell me, will you start using this platform? Perhaps you already are, would you recommend it to others?

Let me have your responses in the comments section right away.

Also, share this post with your friends. Thank you!