The Success Behind Blur: Market Creates Stars

A new NFT market has once again stirred up the cryptocurrency market. According to Dune Analytics data on February 5th, Blur's trading volume has exceeded 200 million USD in the past three months, far surpassing similar NFT aggregators. Gem (38.18 million USD) and Reservoir (19.89 million USD) ranked second and third in the three-month trading volume rankings.

Since Blur's launch in March 2022, it has attracted a large number of fans in a short time through a waiting list. Shortly after its public release, Blur attracted a large number of users' attention and surpassed Gem in just two weeks, becoming the highest-selling NFT aggregator in three days. The two airdrops announced by Blur were the main reasons behind its growth at the time. The start of Blur's third airdrop even led to a rapid increase in trading volume and floor prices of blue-chip NFTs such as BAYC and Azuki. Meanwhile, under the double blow of insufficient market funds and the challenges posed by "Free Mint" and "zero royalties" to the sustainable development of projects, players have become accustomed to "quick in and out": an excellent aggregator is an urgent need for players active in the market at this stage. Blur is designed for professional traders and meets the current market demand.

If you buy directly in the NFT trading market as before, the price differences and slow response between different markets will result in the inability to quickly obtain suitable chips, leading to missed opportunities or losses. In OpenSea or other NFT trading markets, different fresh items are recommended on the homepage every day, and users can choose their favorite images and wait for the transactions to be completed slowly, similar to browsing a market. In Blur, the homepage only displays the trading data dashboard of popular projects, with fast-paced buying and selling, as if on an exchange.

Blur is an NFT market and aggregator designed for professional traders with many innovative features. The official definition is "a combination of a real-time NFT market and aggregator," supporting batch NFT transactions and adopting zero royalties (Opensea charges a 5% fee). The Blur platform aggregates NFT series from leading trading markets such as OpenSea, LooksRare, and X2Y2, and allows users to list their NFT assets on Blur, unlike many other NFT markets that charge transaction commissions, Blur maintains a 0% NFT transaction fee.

Team Background

In March 2022, Blur announced that it had raised over 14 million USD, with Paradigm leading the investment and participants including Keyboard Monkey, LedgerStatus, 0xMaki, Santiago Santos, Zeneca, and Deeze, as well as institutional and angel investors. The Blur team consists of developers from well-known institutions such as MIT, Citadel, Five Rings Capital, Twitch, Brex, Square, and Y Combinator.

Operations and Interface for Cryptocurrency Veterans

Opening Blur.io and linking to the wallet, the system prompts users to connect their Web3 wallet (currently supporting MetaMask, WalletConnect, and Coinbase wallets), and once connected, users can start exploring various NFTs on the website.

By default, collections are listed in order of daily trading volume and display key data (such as floor price, number of holders, and various price and quantity indicators). Users can also view all Ethereum-based NFTs in their wallets through Blur's portfolio tab, making it easy to track listed NFTs, their rarity, estimated collection value, and lifecycle profit and loss.

The Blur interface is customizable, allowing users to switch between multiple views (such as list and grid) based on their preferences when browsing NFT collections. Unlike OpenSea, where users need to switch tabs to view sales history or other analytics, Blur can display all content on a single page, making it easier to access and compare all relevant NFT collection data.

As mentioned earlier, OpenSea is like a "marketplace" and is user-friendly for inexperienced beginners; Blur, on the other hand, is more like an "exchange" and is more geared towards cryptocurrency veterans and advanced users. Overall, as an aggregator, Blur is very user-friendly.

Providing Efficient and Convenient Features for Traders

Blur's platform operates ten times faster than other NFT aggregators, displaying pending transactions on NFTs in less than 1 second and updating the list every 4 seconds. The lightning-fast display of pending transactions, along with nearly real-time metadata updates on art displays, provides a huge advantage for users who want to "buy and sell quickly." In addition, Blur's gas priority presets help traders get ahead of their competitors when buying NFTs through other exchanges or aggregators. Most importantly, Blur's contracts are more optimized than other markets, saving users up to 17% in gas fees.

Another highly praised feature of Blur is the clear display of the rarity of different NFTs and floor prices based on specific attributes. On the Blur platform, NFTs are not evaluated based on series lists and sales history to determine NFTs priced above the floor price, but rather based on individual features to find the lowest-priced NFT listings. This feature not only helps users accurately assess their assets but also benefits NFT buyers looking to buy at the lowest prices. For users looking to buy at the lowest prices, Blur also provides corresponding tools. All NFT series have a floor price depth analysis chart, showing how many NFTs are listed above different floor prices, allowing buyers to intuitively understand how their purchased NFTs will impact the market.

As a platform focused on NFT trading, Blur's advantages indeed lead similar projects on the market. However, Blur currently only supports Ethereum, but its team has indicated plans to add more public chains in the future.

"Custom Royalties" and "Zero Fees" on Blur

Royalties have always been a sensitive topic in the NFT trading market, as "traders want to maximize profits, collectors want to support creators, and creators want to earn more royalties." Because royalties cannot be enforced across multiple markets, different platforms have different royalty settings. When traders list on Blur, they can customize the royalties for their listings.

Previously, the zero royalties and custom royalties of SudoSwap and X2Y2 have caused a lot of discussion in the market. It is believed that custom or zero royalties make it difficult for project parties to continue to develop, so Blur hopes to encourage traders to use royalties through airdrops. In the second airdrop, users of Blur who set higher royalties will receive higher loyalty and more airdrops. However, in reality, this expected encouragement did not actually prevent low or even zero royalty behavior. The overall average royalty rate of Blur is still very low, and it has even led to a decrease in overall NFT market royalties.

Unlike OpenSea, LooksRare, and X2Y2, Blur does not charge users. Traders using Blur's aggregator, trading market, and other functions do not incur any costs. Under the premise of custom royalties, traders can directly receive full income, but the zero fees should be seen as a strategy to attract new users in the short term.

However, due to Blur's custom royalties, it has also led to the "blacklist dispute" between Blur and OpenSea.

The Blacklist Dispute Between Blur and OpenSea

In November 2022, OpenSea implemented a new policy: NFT projects seeking to enforce royalties must blacklist those markets that do not fully respect them. Since Blur did not enforce royalties at the time, it was blacklisted, preventing NFT collections that enforced royalties on OpenSea from trading on Blur. Subsequently, Blur attempted to communicate with OpenSea in an attempt to be removed from the blacklist but was refused.

On February 1st, Blur created a new NFT trading system using OpenSea's Seaport to bypass OpenSea's blacklist control. Since Seaport is not blacklisted by OpenSea, NFT projects that were previously blacklisted by Blur can now be traded through the new system and enforce royalties.

Currently, Blur has two systems for executing trades on its market. The old system continues to handle NFT projects that have not been blacklisted, while the new system is responsible for NFT projects previously blacklisted by Blur. Since Blur automatically selects the system, it provides a smooth experience for users.

Rationally speaking, "zero royalties" make it more difficult for small and medium-sized creators/project parties. However, rather than seeing it as a mistake brought about by Blur, it is more accurate to say that Blur has adapted to the market. The harsh winter of the 2022 cryptocurrency market has not completely receded, and the active users at present are mainly traders, and it is these trading users that have created the current Blur.

Conclusion

While using an aggregator as a traffic importer for the market is good, the challenges that follow are still severe. Gem under OpenSea will strive to narrow the gap in user experience and reclaim the lead in the aggregator race. From OpenSea's launch of Collection Offer and the beta version of the data dashboard, it can be seen that OpenSea also perceives the changing demands of the current market environment. It is possible to seamlessly integrate Gem into the market. Blur needs to continue to maintain its differentiated core advantages, but "zero royalties" and "zero fees" indeed fit the current market. The future of Blur is still unknown.

At the same time, professional users may find Blur's experience better, but cryptocurrency newcomers may find that the features provided by Blur cannot compare to those provided by markets such as OpenSea. With the popularization of cryptocurrency and NFT applications, Blur may also expand its user base; however, if it wants to surpass OpenSea, it needs to cater to both professional users and beginners, making its platform more accessible and user-friendly to a wider audience.

About Us

veDAO

veDAO is a community dedicated to discovering early potential projects for investment and financing. By gathering the wisdom of the masses and professional opinions, it provides a fair, transparent, and democratic project evaluation and investment process for community participants, investors, and project parties, allowing all participants to share the dividends of project development.

Website: http://www.vedao.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vedao_official

Facebook: bit.ly/3jmSJwN

Telegram: t.me/veDAO_zh

Discord: https://discord.gg/NEmEyrWfjV