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Upstart NFT marketplace Obscuritythe biggest rival to market leader OpenSea in recent months, is set to begin its delayed airdrop of BLUR tokens today to reward Ethereum NFT traders.
Obscurity launched its marketplace in October last year with the promise of token rewards for traders, and has provided users with “care packages” representing upcoming token allocations. Users can finally open up their care packages today and claim the Ethereum-based tokens, with an estimated start around 1:30 PM ET after a late morning delay.
The marketplace has allocated the token allocations in three waves to date. The first wave was offered up to eligible Ethereum NFT traders using a competing marketplace in the six months prior to Blur’s own launch. The second wave was for Blur users who listed their NFTs for sale on the marketplace through November, while the final wave is for traders bidding on NFTs through Blur.
Blur initially planned to drop the governance token to eligible users in January, but then postponed the airdrop until today. “We’re trying new things,” the marketplace tweeted January 19 “and the extra two weeks will allow us to deliver a launch that hasn’t been done before.”
Billing itself as the “marketplace for pro-traders,” Blur raised $11 million in a seed round led by Paradigm and announced in March 2022. Like LooksRare and other marketplaces that have emerged following the rise of the NFT market , Blur is trying to build an audience by offering potentially valuable token rewards to traders.
Anticipation of the pending token drop has seemingly fueled Blur’s rise in recent months, with the marketplace sometimes topping OpenSea in terms of NFT trading volume.
However, the hype surrounding token rewards has also raised suspicions about how much “wash trading” takes place on the platform as users potentially manipulate trades to increase rewards. That’s what happened to LooksRare in early 2022, when users traded NFTs back and forth between their own wallets at artificially inflated prices to manipulate the reward model.
Blur has not provided billions of dollars worth of suspicious looking trades, unlike LooksRare did last year. But data shows that Blur has far fewer active traders and transactions than OpenSea in the past week, despite more overall trading volume.
Data from the analysis platform Dune suggests so about. 13% of Blur trades is classified as suspected laundry trade, compared to approx. 2% for OpenSea.
We’ll see if Blur’s growing momentum in recent months continues after users stop trading with airdrop incentives in mind. Notable crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Huobi have already announced plans to support the BLUR token when it begins trading today.
Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to reflect the changed timing of the air release.
