Ethereum NFT marketplace Blur will shut down its website on November 12, the company announced.
The deprecation applies only to the blur.io frontend. The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and holders of the BLUR token will continue to control its fee switch.
Blend, Blur's peer-to-peer NFT lending platform, will stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default. Blur said it will provide a tool afterward to help users withdraw their assets from Blend.
Market Context
Blur launched in 2022 and quickly overtook OpenSea in trading volume. The NFT market has since contracted significantly. Global NFT market revenue is projected at $318.3 million in 2026, according to Statista, well below peaks recorded in 2021 and 2022.
Monthly NFT sales volume fell to $167.2 million in September, down from $554.8 million a year earlier and $1.78 billion in December 2023, according to CryptoSlam data. Cheaper NFTs have driven up sales counts even as trading volume has declined, according to DappRadar.
The announcement follows Blast, the Ethereum layer-2 network launched in November 2023 by the team behind Blur, shutting down after determining its operational costs exceed earnings. Blast drew more than $2.3 billion in deposits by its February 2024 mainnet launch and gave users until October 26 to withdraw through its interface.
