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Ascendant NFT marketplace Blur announced on Tuesday that it will soon send out an additional $300 million worth of tokens to loyal users, days after past once pristine competitor OpenSea as the most popular Ethereum NFT trading platform by trading volume.
Blur will issue 300 million of its original BLUR tokens to traders during the platform’s “Season 2,” which has already begun. BLUR is currently trading at $0.99, according to CoinGecko.
“Season 1,” which culminated in the debut of its original token BLUR last weeksaw Blur handing out “care packages” of BLUR to traders who switched to the platform from a competing NFT marketplace, listed NFTs on the platform immediately after the October launch, or used Blur to bid on NFTs.
“Season 2” will see tokens distributed to traders in a more fixed gamified program, according to the company. Blur customers will be awarded a “loyalty point” based on their interaction with and commitment to the trading platform, and buyers and sellers who refrain from using any other NFT marketplace will, for example, receive a 100% loyalty point.
A user’s loyalty points, in combination with the number of NFTs they list, will determine how many BLUR tokens they will ultimately receive in a later airdrop.
Under this new loyalty system, even minor actions can potentially increase a user’s chances of receiving more BLUR. The company suggested on Tuesday that even quote-tweeting the Twitter announcement regarding Season 2 could increase a user’s loyalty points.
However, it is unclear what technical mechanisms Blur has in place to link activity on separate platforms such as Twitter with metrics on its own site. The company did not immediately respond Decryptits request for clarification.
Tuesday’s announcement marks the latest escalation in a wide-ranging war that has erupted between NFT platforms to attract and retain clients. 13.3 billion dollars Long considered the only dominant Ethereum NFT marketplace, OpenSea has in recent months bled users to Blur, largely thanks to the latter’s lucrative token-backed incentive program. Both companies have offered benefits to users which blocks the other.
Last week, likely prompted by Blur’s sharp rise and lack of marketplace fees, OpenSea eliminated its own 2.5% fee– the company’s primary source of income – for a “limited time”. It also slashed royalty protections for creators, once a hallmark of the NFT model, which previously guaranteed creators a royalty fee – typically 5-10% – on secondary NFT sales. Such royalty fees are how NFT projects generate ongoing income after an initial drop or sale.
While the sustainability of Blur’s aggressive incentive program is unclear, its immediate impact on competitors such as OpenSea will almost certainly reinforce current trends.
Although Blur currently boasts significantly higher trading volume than OpenSea, the majority of this activity appears to have been generated by a smaller number of whalers turn NFTs into the game’s Blurs reward program to collect as much BLUR as possible.
However, the popularity of that rewards program is dependent on the value of Blur’s original token. In the last 24 hours, BLUR has dropped around 24% in value, down from $1.28.
