Not sure how to use the NFT marketplace that flipped OpenSea in trading volume? Let us guide you through it!
When it comes to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), there are tens and hundreds of marketplaces where users can trade these digital assets. From popular platforms like OpenSea and Rarible to relatively newer ones like LooksRare and X2Y2, the niche is never in short supply of new marketplaces.
Blur is one of the most recent entrants into the space. But less than five months after its launch, the NFT marketplace has made the headlines for flipping OpenSea in several key metrics, including daily trade volume and weekly volume.
Join us in showcasing the cryptocurrency revolution, one newsletter at a time. Subscribe now to get daily news and market updates right to your inbox, along with our millions of other subscribers (that’s right, millions love us!) — what are you waiting for?
What Is Blur?
Launched on October 19, 2022, Blur is an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace designed to cater to the needs of advanced NFT traders. The platform touts itself as the “fastest NFT marketplace,” and offers features such as faster NFT snipe and sweep, real-time price feeds and price-based sorting, portfolio management, batch shelf and zero trading fees on NFT sales. Furthermore, the marketplace aggregates non-fungible tokens from OpenSea, LooksRare and X2Y2.
While other NFT marketplaces generally focus on retail users, Blur focuses on pro or whale traders. NFT traders have access to a marketplace, an aggregator, and several advanced trading tools all in one platform.
Founders and Backers of Blur NFT marketplace
The NFT marketplace was co-founded by Tieshun Roquerre, who goes by “Pacman” online, and a pseudonymous individual. The identity of Roquerre remained a mystery until he decided to self-doxx in February 2023.
That said, 24-year-old Roquerre dropped out of both high school and MIT to create crypto companies. He worked as a software engineer at the e-commerce site, Teespring, before dropping out of high school to co-found StrongIntro, a company that he went through the Y Combinator startup accelerator. He then did a two-year stint at MIT and dropped out to found a crypto domain startup, Namebase.
Roquerre was able to raise $5 million from Namebase before selling it to Namecheap within three years. Generally speaking, the team behind Blur consists of individuals with experience from MIT, Citadel, Twitch, Five Rings Capital, Square and Brex.
Apart from Pacman, Blur was built with the support of Paradigm. In March 2022, the platform raised $11 million in a seed round led by Paradigm. Other notable backers in the NFT space include Punk6529, NFT expert Zeneca, and Cozomo De Medici, famous rapper Snoop Dogg's pseudonym in the NFT space.
How To Use Blur NFT Marketplace?
Despite the tag of being designed for more advanced NFT traders, Blur operates like most NFT trading platforms. This means that users are required to connect their crypto wallets before they can trade NFTs on the platform. As of March 2023, the marketplace supports three crypto wallets: MetaMask, WalletConnect and Coinbase Wallet.
After connecting a wallet, users can browse through the top and trending collections on the platform or upload and connect their existing NFT assets.
NFT traders can purchase digital collectibles through Blur from fellow users and creators. When utilizing Blur's native marketplace, traders are required to pay royalty fees to the creators, also known as supply-side fees.
Users can also access other features like the aggregator, which allows them to purchase several NFTs at a time on different marketplaces.
Meanwhile, the platform offers two user modes: trader and collector. The trader category offers more charts, more data and a condensed view while the collector mode displays a cleaner view with bigger images and a familiar interface.
Collector’s Mode
Trader’s Mode
What Are the Marketplace fees on Blur?
Blur NFT marketplace has one of the most competitive fees in the space. As already mentioned, the platform does not charge any transaction fees for NFT sales. However, it recommends a default royalty rate of 0.5% for buyers, which can still be customized and even set to 0 if a user wishes.
Unique Features of Blur NFT Marketplace
Speed
The trading platform does not only laud itself as the “fastest NFT marketplace” but also claims to enable 10 times faster sweeping. While this claim is subject to debate, Blur is among the fastest NFT aggregators and marketplaces in use today. It is built to support fast batch minting and purchases. This is useful for traders who snipe rare traits.
That said, listings on the platform are updated every four seconds, and pending NFT transactions are displayed within a second.
Listing Options and Analytics
Blur NFT marketplace provides access to a wide array of cutting-edge portfolio options and NFT analytics. Traders can leverage the built-in analytics to manage their portfolios more effectively.
Sweep Functionality
Sweeping essentially involves buying several floor-priced NFTs in a collection. This process can be quite cumbersome depending on the popularity and demand for the digital collectible. Advanced traders often rely on bots to speed up this process. Blur makes sweeping an NFT collection easy. In addition to its zero trading fees and optimized gas contracts through bulk listings, the platform has a floor-depth chart for each collection that helps traders to make more accurate projections.
Royalties
In 2022, the issue of creator royalties became a big deal in the NFT space. The fracas led several NFT marketplaces to choose between enforcing creator royalties or allowing buyers to decide whether or not to pay royalties. Blur takes a slightly different approach toward royalty enforcement.
First, NFT owners can specify creator royalties for their tokens when they list them on the marketplace. Users are generally incentivized to pay royalties and those who support creator royalties benefit from loyalty points in the form of BLUR tokens.
BLUR Tokenomics
The Blur ecosystem is powered by its native $BLUR token, which has a total supply of 3 billion. According to the company’s document on its tokenomics, the minted tokens will become accessible over the course of 4 to 5 years. As for the allocation, 51% of $BLUR will go to the community, which translates to 1,530,000,000 BLUR tokens. 29% has been earmarked for past and future core contributors, with a four-year vesting period. 19% will go to investors, while the remaining 1% will go to advisors.
As of March 2023, Blur had a circulating supply of around 360 million, equivalent to 12% of the total token supply. There will be a linear unlock of 1.2 million tokens daily to the community treasury.
$BLUR Token Airdrop
It is not uncommon for new NFT marketplaces to offer some form of incentive to new users as a marketing strategy. In 2022, NFT marketplace LooksRare made its debut with a “vampire attack” targeting OpenSea users. The platform famously launched with an airdrop to wallets that had traded a minimum of 3 ETH on OpenSea.
Read: OpenSea vs Blur
In the case of Blur, the platform concluded the first season of its $BLUR token airdrop in February 2023. The incentivization program rewarded users with “Care Pages” for trading on the platform and providing liquidity. There are reports that some traders earned as much as $3 million in $BLUR tokens after the project launched at a jaw-dropping $400 million valuation.
It may interest you to know that the platform is gearing up for a second season of its airdrop, and Blur has confirmed that over 300m tokens will be distributed in Season 2. For the upcoming event, all bidding and listing points have been doubled until 1st April 2023.
What Is the Blur DAO?
As already mentioned, $BLUR is the native token of the Blur ecosystem. The ERC-20 token governs key parameters of the Blur protocol, which in turn controls the protocol's value accrual and distribution.
In a bid to decentralize its marketplace and empower its community, Blur launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with 360M tokens to be distributed to creators, Care Package holders, and traders. What this means is that the community will have a say in the platform’s value accrual. The Blur Foundation was created to support this community-led initiative.
Blur DAO is a key part of the protocol, responsible for its governance and management. Notably, holders of $BLUR will be able to vote on some key decisions, most of which will have on-chain results. Voting power is proportional to the amount of $BLUR tokens held or delegated.
This article contains links to third-party websites or other content for information purposes only (“Third-Party Sites”). The Third-Party Sites are not under the control of CoinMarketCap, and CoinMarketCap is not responsible for the content of any Third-Party Site, including without limitation any link contained in a Third-Party Site, or any changes or updates to a Third-Party Site. CoinMarketCap is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by CoinMarketCap of the site or any association with its operators. This article is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It is important to do your own research and analysis before making any material decisions related to any of the products or services described. This article is not intended as, and shall not be construed as, financial advice. The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s [company’s] own and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinMarketCap. CoinMarketCap is not responsible for the success or authenticity of any project, we aim to act as a neutral informational resource for end-users.
