Since the NFT boom in 2021, OpenSea has become the main market for creators and traders. Now a new competitor, Blur.io, is challenging the company’s dominance, and in the process causing excitement during a long bear market for crypto and NFTs.
But can the excitement last?
After raising $11 million in a seed round led by venture capital firm Paradigm, Blur went public in October. First, it seeks to attract customers by distributing “care packages” and promising loyal users future rewards in the form of the cryptocurrency, BLUR. Earlier this month, they followed through on that promise, distributing massive amounts of “airdrop” tokens in three waves intended to incentivize members of their target market – professional traders – to migrate from other markets.
For season 2, the company plans to distribute another 300 million tokens, teasing the idea of a “loyalty value” to encourage creators to list NFTs exclusively on Blur to earn more rewards.
300M+ BLUR will be distributed to the community in Season 2.
What’s the secret to maximizing rewards? fidelity.
Users with 100% loyalty have the highest chance of a Mythical Treatment Pack, which costs 100x the Uncommon Treatment Pack.
Here are 3 ways to maximize your loyalty👇 pic.twitter.com/Cgiemrvpxh
— Blur (@blur_io) February 21, 2023
Thanks in part to token airdrops, Blur has overtaken OpenSea as the most popular marketplace, with $1.04 billion in sales volume over the past 30 days, compared to OpenSea’s $479 million, according to data from DappRadar.
But it is yet to be determined whether Blur’s feat is possible. Competition between markets has heated up over the past few months—Blur has gained a new advantage by charging less.
blur has no trading fees and imposes a minimum creator royalty of 0.5%.. Meanwhile, OpenSea has a 2.5% fee and royalty enforcement tools to ensure creators are paid the royalties they choose and can block the market with optional royalties.
The OpenSea tool directly affected Blur until it reportedly discovered a loophole late last month. Last week, Blur directly targeted royalty enforcement tools—and OpenSea directly—by saying it would enforce creators’ royalties in full, as long as creators block trade in collections on OpenSea.
The NFT market responded by dropping trading fees to 0% “for a limited time,” moving to a minimum optional royalty fee of 0.5%, and eliminating royalty enforcement tools.
We’re making some big changes today:
1) OpenSea Fees → 0% for a limited time
2) Move to optional creator income (0.5% min) for all collections without on-chain enforcement (old & new)
3) Markets with the same policy will not be blocked by the operator’s filter– OpenSea (@opensea) February 17, 2023
The change is a bold decision by OpenSea, which has promised to implement royalties for creators after following the idea of following several other markets in make it optional late November.
A spokesperson said the company is playing the long game.
“While we are testing a different fee structure for our core business that reflects the needs of the current ecosystem,” a spokesperson said in an email. “In the long term, we are investing in increasing the total market and diversity of business models – through basic infrastructure, industry-leading Trust & Safety solutions, and tools for creators and partners to build their business.”
Despite the recent dominance of Blur, some claim that the tokenomics is not innovative and could be bad for the NFT ecosystem as a whole by making NFT more about profit than art.
1. I’m going to be 100% real here. @blur_io it is bad for NFTs and CryptoArt. There is a joke that NFTs are just “shitcoins with pictures” and the blur has essentially turned into a GUI creator that minimizes the real art for NFTs to nothing. pic.twitter.com/7vAs7osOcM
— exlawyer.eth/tez (@exlawyernft) February 24, 2023
Pedro Herrera, head of research at DappRadar, said that while Blur has given 51% of its token supply to the community, the allocation is skewed.
“Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly clear that only the Ethereum NFT whales will be the main beneficiaries,” Herrera said. fortune “To give some context, about 80% of Blur’s volume comes from 500 wallets, roughly.”
A spokesperson for Blur said via Twitter direct messaging that while it’s true that some “whales” receive seven-figure airdrops, there are also smaller people who receive tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from airdrops.
“If you browse Twitter you can find many examples of people tweeting that they can pay their student loans, loans, etc. because of their airdrop,” said the spokesperson.
The bold move to take on OpenSea after years of dominance—and in a bear market—shows that a new era of competition could arise in the world of NFTs. And all that remains is to see how OpenSea will continue to respond to these threats.
“Now the question is, wen OpenSea token,” Herrera said.
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