NFT marketplace Blur to close website Nov. 12 after volume falls more than 99%

What's closing, and what isn't

According to Blur's announcement as reported by CoinDesk, the website goes dark on Nov. 12 and Blend, its NFT lending service, has stopped arranging new loans. Borrowers have until that date to repay their loans or let them default. Blur said it'll provide a separate tool after the closure so users can withdraw assets from Blend.

The protocol isn't going away. Blur's smart contracts will keep running on Ethereum, so the trading system on the blockchain outlives the website. BLUR tokenholders also keep control of the fee switch (the mechanism that lets them vote on whether the marketplace charges trading fees).

From 70% market share to under $7 million

Blur launched in 2022 and went after OpenSea, the leader at the time, by offering professional traders faster transactions, low fees and token rewards. It worked. DefiLlama data cited by CoinDesk shows Blur captured more than 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023, when monthly activity on the platform reached about $1.43 billion. By March 2026, monthly volume was below $7 million, a decline of more than 99.5%.

Blur charged traders nothing. Token Terminal records $0 in protocol revenue over the past three years despite billions of dollars in NFT trades, although that figure doesn't show whether Blur earned money from lending or other activities. Its website still advertises zero marketplace fees and more than $7.4 billion in lifetime trading volume.

Those incentive programs had their critics, who said they encouraged speculative trading and put pressure on royalties paid to NFT creators. The volume numbers on their own also don't tell you how much activity came from genuine buyers and how much came from traders chasing rewards.

Blast went first

Blast was also created by crypto entrepreneur Tieshun Roquerre (known as Pacman) and developed by the Blur team, and it announced its shutdown on Oct. 2. The network once attracted more than $2 billion in assets, partly through rewards for users who deposited funds. That figure had dropped to about $32 million by the time developers announced the closure. They said the network cost more to operate than it brought in. Blast users have until Oct. 26 to withdraw through its regular interface.

Blur hasn't publicly blamed operating losses for its own shutdown.

The BLUR token fell more than 20% after Monday's announcement and was trading around $0.015, CoinDesk reported.