Blur, the NFT marketplace that briefly overtook OpenSea in trading volume, plans to close its website next month while keeping its onchain marketplace operating. The decision has prompted some collectors to celebrate the platform’s retreat and renewed criticism of the trading incentives that helped it grow but put pressure on creator royalties.
According to Cointelegraph, Blur announced on X that its website frontend will shut down on Nov. 12. The announcement was the company’s first post on the platform in more than a year. Blur did not explain why it was closing the frontend or winding down part of its lending business.
The onchain marketplace will remain available after the website closes. This means Blur’s underlying blockchain-based marketplace is not being entirely discontinued, although the web interface that users relied on to access it will no longer operate.
Blur’s Blend protocol will also stop matching new loans. Blend is a peer-to-peer perpetual NFT lending service, allowing users to borrow against nonfungible tokens. Borrowers with outstanding loans have until Nov. 12 to repay them or allow the loans to default. Blur said it would provide a withdrawal interface after the shutdown.
The announcement drew sharply negative reactions from some NFT collectors. One collector described the closure as a welcome development and accused Blur of damaging the NFT market. Another said the platform had tried to undermine NFTs but praised the community for surviving its influence. The comments reflected longstanding opposition to Blur’s marketplace strategy rather than a stated reason for the shutdown.
How Blur changed NFT marketplace competition
Blur launched on Oct. 19, 2022, during a period when NFT platforms were competing aggressively for traders and market share. Its model allowed sellers to customize royalty payments and offered larger potential token rewards to users who paid higher creator royalties.
Creator royalties are payments associated with secondary NFT sales that can provide income to the original artist or collection creator. In practice, the level and enforceability of those payments became a major point of competition among marketplaces. Blur made royalties optional, while using token incentives to encourage trading activity and higher bids.
The approach helped Blur rise rapidly and overtake OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume in 2023. It also contributed to a broader shift toward lower or optional royalties, according to the source material. Rival marketplace OpenSea later moved to optional creator fees for new collections as it competed with Blur.
Blur entered an environment in which royalty protections were already weakening. Magic Eden had moved to optional royalties the week before Blur launched. By July 2023, blockchain analytics platform Nansen reported that effective creator royalty fees had fallen to 0.6%, from an average of 2.5% in 2022. Nansen attributed much of the difference to Blur’s growth, its minimum-royalty policy and OpenSea’s decision to reduce its own royalty requirements.
The controversy centered on the tension between attracting traders and supporting creators. Token rewards and low royalty costs could encourage users to bid on and quickly resell NFTs, but lower effective royalties reduced the amount creators received from secondary-market activity.
NFT trading remains far below its peak
Blur’s planned website closure comes as the wider NFT market is operating well below its boom-era levels. CryptoSlam data cited in the report showed total NFT sales of $167 million across 2.9 million transactions in September. In January 2022, the market recorded its peak monthly sales volume, with $6 billion in sales and 13.7 million transactions.
Other NFT-related platforms have also announced closures or withdrawals. Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway and social collecting platform Rodeo said they planned to wind down in January. Foundation announced its closure in April after an attempted sale intended to keep the platform operating fell through. Binance ended NFT support on its exchange and shifted asset management to Binance Wallet.
The figures illustrate the scale of the contraction from the market’s peak, although they do not establish the specific reason for Blur’s decision. Blur has not disclosed why it is closing its frontend or ending the matching of new Blend loans. Cointelegraph reported that it contacted Blur founder Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre for comment.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar market data at 09:44 on Oct. 13, 2026, showed the following prices and changes:
- Polygon (prev. MATIC), now listed as POL, traded at $0.104546099, down 0.92% over 24 hours and 4.37% over seven days.
- AINFT traded at $0.0000002369, down 0.28% over 24 hours and 1.09% over seven days.
- Ethereum Name Service traded at $6.0011940861, down 4.44% over 24 hours and 12.49% over seven days.
These market figures provide a snapshot of selected digital assets at that time and are separate from the NFT sales totals reported by CryptoSlam.
