Blur NFT Marketplace Shuts Down After 99% Volume Collapse
The once-dominant Ethereum NFT venue closes its site Nov. 12, with Blend halting new loans. BLUR token slid more than 20% on the news.
Blur, once the largest Ethereum NFT marketplace, is closing its website after monthly volumes fell from about $1.43 billion to under $7 million.
Blur is done. The once-largest Ethereum NFT marketplace is shutting its website on Nov. 12, according to CoinDesk. Its Blend lending arm will stop arranging new loans that same day.
The numbers are brutal. Monthly trading volume collapsed from roughly $1.43 billion in March 2023 to under $7 million by March 2026. That is a drop of more than 99.5%. DefiLlama data shows Blur once captured over 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume.
Zero fees, zero revenue
Blur never charged marketplace fees. Token Terminal records $0 in protocol revenue over the past three years, even as billions of dollars in NFTs changed hands. The data does not show whether Blur made money from Blend or other services. The project has not publicly blamed operating losses, unlike sister network Blast.
Blast, created by the same founder Tieshun Roquerre, announced its own shutdown on Oct. 2. Blast once held over $2 billion in assets, but that figure had fallen to about $32 million by closure time.
What happens now
Borrowers on Blend have until Nov. 12 to repay loans or let them default. Blur plans a separate tool for withdrawing assets afterward. Smart contracts on Ethereum stay live, and BLUR tokenholders keep control of the fee switch. The BLUR token fell more than 20% after Monday's announcement, trading around $0.015.
Blur's website still advertises over $7.4 billion in lifetime trading volume. A fitting ghost of the bull market.
The takeaway: Blur's fee-free, rewards-heavy model won volume but never showed protocol revenue, and now the marketplace joins Blast on the way out.
Summary written by Oh Cannot from the original report by CoinDesk. Not financial advice.
