Blur Follows the Path of LooksRare and Ultimately Exits
On October 12, Blur officially announced that the front end of blur.io will be officially discontinued on November 12. This adjustment only involves the front end, while the Blur market protocol will continue to operate on the Ethereum chain, and the BLUR token will still control the protocol fee switch.
On the same day, the Blend lending protocol stopped matching new loans. Existing borrowers must repay before the deadline or choose to default; after the due date, Blur will provide specialized front-end tools to assist users in withdrawing assets from Blend. The official also warned to be cautious of impersonating accounts and false announcements.
Blur launched on October 19, 2022, featuring zero market fees, a faster trading interface, and bulk buy/sell functions, while introducing a points and rewards mechanism to attract liquidity. On February 14, 2023, the BLUR token was launched and completed a large-scale first-quarter airdrop, with some traders receiving millions in rewards; the token once reached a historical high of $5.02 and surpassed OpenSea in trading volume.
By March 2023, Blur became one of the leading NFT markets by trading volume, with traders earning points through orders, bids, and trades. In April, the second quarter incentives were launched, rewarding bids and liquidity provision, while disputes arose with creators over royalties. In May, Blend NFT collateral lending was introduced, allowing users to borrow ETH using NFTs and introducing refinancing and liquidation mechanisms.
Starting in June 2023, a large-scale unlocking of BLUR began, with new supply continuously entering circulation. The seasonal incentives continued into 2024, but overall NFT trading activity declined. In November, Blur still accounted for about 49% of trading volume, while the overall market had significantly shrunk. By 2025, OpenSea's share rebounded, while Blur's share dropped to 23% at times, and the total value locked (TVL) in NFT lending fell from about $300 million to $8.3 million, with Blend dropping to about $3 million.
Market making and liquidity had heavily relied on order and bidding behaviors driven by points incentives, with capital inflows directed towards reward-oriented professional traders. After the front end shuts down, the entry for ordinary users is cut off; however, technical users can still interact directly with the on-chain contracts, but liquidity expectations are under pressure, and the BLUR price fell over 16% to $0.33 within 24 hours after the announcement. Beneficiaries are governance holders who still control the fee switch and traders who can directly call contracts, while those under pressure are retail investors relying on the official front end and Blend borrowers.
Blur's monthly trading volume fell from a peak of about $1.43 billion in March 2023 to less than $7 million by March 2026, a decline of over 99.5%. The protocol has not generated any trading fee revenue in the past three years under the zero-fee model.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Blur was founded by Tieshun Roquerre (Pacman) and raised $11 million in seed funding in March 2022, aiming to challenge OpenSea and focus on professional NFT traders. The company was supported by Paradigm and quickly captured market share after launch through zero fees and a points mechanism, reaching a monthly trading volume of about $1.43 billion in March 2023 and briefly dominating the Ethereum NFT market. During the same period, Blend lending was launched to expand into NFT collateral financing. Roquerre later also led the Ethereum L2 project Blast, which recently announced its closure.
The capital path was centered on token incentives: large-scale airdrops and multi-season point rewards guided traders to place orders and bids to boost volume, while unlocking released supply to investors and contributors. Funds primarily flowed towards reward-oriented liquidity provision and professional trading behavior, rather than sustained fee income. Under the zero-fee model, the protocol's trading fee revenue has remained close to zero for a long time, despite cumulative trading volume exceeding $7.4 billion. Reports of large BLUR transfers to Coinbase Prime in 2025 and subsequent exchange adjustments further reflect changes in holding structures.
Similar to LooksRare, which challenged OpenSea with token rewards and experienced high levels of volume manipulation, ultimately leading to a decline in market share, Blur is transitioning from an incentive expansion phase to a contraction exit phase: the front end's closure marks the exit from product operations, while the on-chain contracts and fee switch remain. The industry position has shifted from being a trading volume leader in 2023 to a contracting participant amid the overall NFT market shrinkage, with OpenSea and other platforms regaining some market share.
This essentially represents a restructuring of the industry chain. The incentive-driven front end and liquidity provision model struggle to maintain operational costs and user entry points after market contraction, leading to the exit of the official interface while retaining the underlying contracts. The mechanism disconnects trading volume from real demand with zero fees + points; as overall NFT activity declines by over 99% from its peak, the marginal returns of maintaining the front end fall below costs, redirecting capital and attention to competitive venues that can still provide entry or have different incentive structures.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Incentives create traffic, fundamentals determine retention
The front end is the entry, the contract is the foundation
Rewards seize market share, exit first during contraction