A Deep Dive Into Blur: The New NFT Marketplace Challenges Opensea’s Dominance
Will Opensea be dethroned by this upcoming NFT marketplace?
Opensea, a leading marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFT), reached a staggering value of USD 13 billion in January 2022. As a dominant player in the NFT market, Opensea has been the best platform for creators to sell their work. By the end of 2022, Opensea was so far ahead of the curve that no competitors could catch up. But all that changed with the sudden rise in popularity of the Blur NFT marketplace, which launched in October 2022. In a short time, Blur became the talk of the town and posed a serious challenge to Opensea.
Blur is a marketplace and NFT aggregator that gives users the ability to buy multiple NFTs from different marketplaces in one place. The rapid rise to fame begs the question: What sets Blur apart from other NFT marketplaces? Let’s take a look at the reasons behind its success.
What is Blur?
Blur is an NFT marketplace on the Ethereum network (ie the primary public Ethereum production blockchain) founded by Tieshun Requerre, an MIT graduate who goes by @PacmanBlur on Twitter. Primarily designed for professional NFT traders, the platform has its own native token called BLUR, which is valued at USD 0.8125 (as of February 28, 2023).
The token has been airdropped several times over the past couple of months, with the last airdrop on February 14, 2023. During this airdrop, Blur issued 360 million tokens, which is about 12% of the total supply of the project, as a reward for their loyal users. BLUR is a governance token that enables users to make decisions about the marketplace’s future and gives them a stake in its profits through community ownership.
Blur has received financial support from various web3 companies, such as Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures and eGirl Capital. At the time of writing, Blur has risen through the ranks of NFT marketplaces and is now valued at $1 billion, a significant increase from the $11 million it raised in 2022.
What makes Blur stand out from Opensea?
No transaction fees
Unlike Opensea, which charges a 2.5% fee for each transaction, Blur does not charge any fees on the sale and purchase of NFTs. This allows traders to perform batch transactions and sweep the floor (ie buy everything available at the floor price). This enables both NFT traders and project owners to buy everything at floor prices and then sell it on at a profit.
Low royalty fees
In addition to the zero trading fee, Blur only enforces a minimum royalty fee (ie payments to the original creator each time NFT is sold) of just 0.5%, which is much lower than the typical 5-10% charged by creators.
Recently, Blur updated its policy to become an even competitor to Opensea by allowing creators to charge any trading fee they want, as long as they block the sale of their NFTs on Opensea. This move was made in response to Opensea’s policy, which automatically makes royalty payments optional if an NFT is traded on Blur.
Fast processing speeds
Blur is known for its processing speed, claiming to be ten times faster than other NFT aggregators. This means users can stay ahead of price fluctuations and quickly process transactions. Compared to Opensea, Blur updates its listings four seconds faster, making it particularly beneficial for professional traders hoping to snag rare NFTs (ie, buying them at a lower price than they’re worth).
Easy to use interface
Another commendable feature of Blur is the interface, which provides users with detailed analysis of each NFT project and all user information in one place. In contrast, Opensea users must move between different pages to view their account data. Mover, Blue users can see the activity of each individual wallet, making it easy to track the trade of an NFT.
In addition, Blur’s interface shows the rarity of the traits found in NFT and the floor price for specific traits. This makes it easier for users to find the cheapest listings for each rare trait, enabling them to find great deals on NFTs much more efficiently.
Native token
Finally, Blur’s original token, BLUR, deserves a mention. The BLUR tokens are a means of governance and profit sharing. Blur uses loyalty points, which are awarded based on how active a user is on the platform, and the quality of NFT holdings to determine how many tokens users will receive during each airdrop.
The BLUR tokens are sent to users as a reward for activity, which encourages more trades and results in higher trading volume. According to crypto analytics firm Delphi Digital, Blur’s recent airdrop resulted in a high trading volume of $77.33 million. The company has recently announced that it will soon start “Season 2” of token airdrops. However, Opensea has no native token that would help them achieve the same results, putting it at a disadvantage compared to Blur.
What does this mean for Opensea?
Well, Opensea isn’t going down without a fight. The company has tried its best to keep pace with the changing NFT market. On February 17, the company announced that it would temporarily waive the fees and change its royalty structures.
Previously, Opensea provided users with a tool to add a snippet that would ensure royalties for creators, but now it has made royalties optional for NFTs without the snippet. Whether these measures will help Opensea maintain its position remains to be seen. As of February 24, Blur has captured 82% of all NFT trading volume, further blurring the lines between which of the two will emerge as the top NFT platform.
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Top image courtesy of Blur’s website
