Interest in Blur craters as NFT enthusiasts return to OpenSea

• User activity on Blur declined significantly in the past few months.
•  OpenSea, on the other hand, has seen a steady flow of users. 

Following its launch in October 2022, Blur [BLUR] gained significant traction in the few months that followed to overtake industry leader OpenSea in NFT transfer volume and trading volume. However, with OpenSea regaining some of its lost market share in the last 90 days, Blur’s popularity in the NFT vertical has begun to dwindle, data from Dune Analytics revealed. 

Quick race to the top and back to the bottom

According to a Glassnode report published in March, Blur’s success within the first few months of its launch was because of its model as a professional trading platform for NFTs, which features a zero-trading fee model and optional royalty payments.

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In addition, the platform gained more popularity following the BLUR token AirDrop, where the NFT marketplace implemented a token reward system that incentivized users to post bids. This enhanced Blur’s market depth and increased its NFT sales frequency over OpenSea.

However, with the past few months plagued by a general decline in the NFT market, user activity on Blur has dawdled. According to on-chain data provider Dune Analytics, daily NFT trading volume on Blur peaked at $51.79 million on 27 June, after which it trended downwards.

As of 16 July, Blur recorded a trading volume of $529, 309, representing a 99% decline in daily trades since the June high. While OpenSea’s daily trading volume since Q3 began has only ranged between $2.5 million and $3 million, it has since regained its position as the top NFT marketplace.

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Source: Dune Analytics

Per data from Dune Analytics, 86% of all NFT trades completed in the last week were executed on OpenSea. During the same period, Blur was responsible for a mere 15%. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Further, as the market gets increasingly uninterested in trading NFTs, Blur has seen its daily average trade price plummet. This suddenly fell from $3413 to $790 between 5 and 6 July. At press time, this stood at $167. While the general NFT market decline affects OpenSea as well, in the last month, its daily average trade price has maintained a narrow range, not falling too steeply. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Regarding user counts on both marketplaces, Blur’s daily users have decreased steadily since July began. With only 152 users completing NFT transactions on the marketplace on 16 July, the daily user count on Blur has dropped by 97% in less than 20 days. OpenSea, on the other hand, continues to see an influx of daily traders.