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Ethereum NFT Marketplace Blur Faces Closure After Volumes Crash 99 Percent

Ethereum NFT Marketplace Blur Faces Closure After Volumes Crash 99 Percent

Blur’s NFT lending platform, Blend, will stop issuing new loans, with borrowers required to settle or risk default before November 12.

Written by Rahul Dhingra, Edited by Rohan Pal | Updated: 13 October 2026 17:36 IST

Ethereum NFT Marketplace Blur Faces Closure After Volumes Crash 99 Percent

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Deng Xiang

Blur launched in 2022 to challenge OpenSea with lower fees and token rewards

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Highlights

Monthly trading volume fell below $7 million by March 2026
Token Terminal recorded zero protocol revenue over the past three years
BLUR token fell 29.1 percent after the closure announcement

Blur, which was previously the biggest marketplace to trade Ethereum non-fungible tokens (NFTs), will close its website next month following a 99 percent reduction in trading since hitting a high due to a second consecutive pullback in ten days for the projects created by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Tieshun Roquerre. According to The Marketplace, its website will shut down on November 12, whereas its NFT lending platform, Blend, will discontinue offering new loans. Borrowers will have up to this date to settle their loans or let them default. A different mechanism will be available after this date for withdrawal of assets from Blend.

Blur Captured More Than 70 Percent of Ethereum NFT Trading in March 2023

The move comes after the October 2 shutdown announcement by Blast, an Ethereum scaling platform that was built by the same Pacman who developed Blur. Blast has previously seen more than $2 billion (roughly Rs. 19,040 crore) in value locked onto its network, in part due to rewards for users who made deposits into the network. The amount had fallen to about $32 million (roughly Rs. 305 crore) at the time the development team announced the shutdown, stating that the network incurred costs higher than its revenues.

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1/ The https://t.co/zPQ1jqR7pT frontend will be deprecated on November 12, 2026. This deprecation only applies to the frontend. The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch.
— Blur (@blur_io) October 12, 2026

Launched in 2022, it was designed to challenge the then-dominant OpenSea by providing faster transactions, lower fees, and token rewards for professional traders. This allowed Blur to win more than 70 percent of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023, when trading on the platform stood at around $1.43 billion (roughly Rs. 13,602 crore), according to DefiLlama. That volume was reduced to below $7 million (roughly Rs. 67 crore) by March 2026, representing a drop of more than 99.5 percent.

However, the exchange of Blur did not generate any revenue from transaction fees from all that trading activity. The platform did not charge anything from traders, and Token Terminal shows $0 in protocol revenue in the last three years, despite billions of dollars worth of NFT trades through the platform. However, the revenue cannot tell whether Blur made money through lending or other operations.

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The controversial incentive program implemented by Blur has been blamed for promoting speculation and causing pressure on the royalties received by the creators of the NFTs. The statistics themselves do not show the amount of actual purchases that were made, but rather speculation. However, unlike Blast, Blur did not explain its shutdown using financial losses. It continues to promote its no marketplace fees and over $7.4 billion (roughly Rs. 70,448 crore) in trading volume ever, which is a good example of how fast it was growing at one point.

BLUR saw an immediate sell-off after the announcement, dropping by 29.1 percent over the last 24 hours. As per data from CoinGecko, the token was priced at $0.01341 (roughly Rs. 0.95) at press time, with its market cap valued at around $38.75 million (roughly Rs. 369 crore). The cryptocurrency traded in the range of $0.01267 (roughly Rs. 0.95) to $0.01909 (roughly Rs. 1.9) in the same period.

In 2024, crypto exchange Kraken also shut down its NFT marketplace almost two years after the platform was launched, saying it's shifting more resources into new products and services. “Clients have been informed of the changes, and our team will support them as they move their NFTs to their Kraken Wallet or a self-custodial wallet of choice,” was the statement from a Kraken spokesperson during the wind-down process.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.

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Further reading: Ethereum NFTs, Ethereum blockchain, NFT token

Rahul Dhingra

Email Rahul Dhingra

Rahul Dhingra is a crypto writer at Gadgets 360, where he covers the exciting world of Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Defi and Web3. Before joining Gadgets 360, he worked as a content specialist for a European-based Crypto Exchange. Rahul loves storytelling, not just through the written word but also through the visual medium. Beyond his professional life, Rahul is a sports fanatic. Whether it’s cricket or football, his passion for the game is contagious. More