19h05 ▪ 4 min read ▪ by Fenelon L.
Summarize this article with:
Blur, long the leading NFT marketplace on Ethereum, announced on Monday the closure of its site for November 12. Monthly volumes dropped from about $1.43 billion at the peak in March 2023 to less than $7 million today, without the platform ever charging fees.
In brief
- Blur will close its site blur.io on November 12, 2026. The Blend lending service will also stop granting new loans on that date.
- Its monthly volumes have dropped by over 99% since their peak in March 2023, while protocol revenues remained zero.
- The BLUR token lost more than 20% after the announcement, ten days after the closure announcement of the Blast network, developed by the same team.
Blur loses ground after its meteoric rise
Launched in 2022, Blur quickly attracted NFT traders thanks to three features: fast transactions, no fees, and token rewards. This strategy enabled it to surpass OpenSea and capture nearly 70% of NFT trades on Ethereum in March 2023, with $1.43 billion monthly volume.
Since then, the trend has reversed. The NFT market has been slowing for several months, and Blur has been hit hard by this slowdown. In March 2026, its monthly volumes fell below $7 million, a drop of over 99.5% compared to the 2023 peak.
On Monday, the platform announced its closure on X. This message marked its return to the social network after more than a year of silence. However, its site still shows zero fees and $7.4 billion in cumulative volume.
Zero commission, but also zero revenue
Behind these billions of dollars traded, Blur’s economic model shows its limits. The platform never charged commissions and, according to Token Terminal data, its protocol generated no revenue over the past three years.
In the fall of 2025, OpenSea doubled its NFT fees to fund its development. Blur, meanwhile, kept its zero-fee model to attract traders. However, without its own revenues, its activity largely depended on rewards distributed to users and hopes for a market recovery.
These campaigns also fueled speculation and increased pressure on creators’ royalties. Some collectors therefore welcome the closure.
Blast and Blur, two withdrawals in ten days
On October 2, Blast, the Ethereum scaling network created by the same team, announced its closure. Its assets fell from over $2 billion to about $32 million. Users must withdraw their funds by October 26.
The two projects are linked to Tieshun Roquerre, known by the pseudonym Pacman. For Blur, the closure concerns the site only, not the contracts on Ethereum, which remain active. BLUR holders also retain control of the fee mechanism.
Meanwhile, Blend users must repay their loans or accept default before November 12. Blur detailed the terms of this deadline on X and promises a withdrawal tool.
After the announcement, the BLUR token dropped more than 20%, around $0.015. Unlike Blast, which cited costs exceeding revenues, Blur did not explain the reasons for its withdrawal.
In September, global NFT sales reached $167 million for 2.9 million transactions, according to CryptoSlam, compared to $6 billion in January 2022. The closure of Blur thus marks the end of an era, without sounding the death knell of NFTs.
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Fenelon L.
Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.