Blur Faces Shutdown After Losing Nearly All Its NFT Trading Volume

Blur will discontinue its website on November 12 as monthly NFT trading volume falls from its 2023 high of approximately $1.43 billion to below $7 million. The announcement arrives ten days after its sister project, Blast, revealed plans to shut down, marking another significant retreat among ventures associated with crypto entrepreneur Tieshun Roquerre.

Blur, once the leading marketplace for Ethereum NFTs, has experienced a decline of more than 99% in trading activity from its peak. The closure represents a major reversal for a platform that previously dominated Ethereum’s NFT trading market.

The company announced on Monday that its website would close on November 12, while Blend, its NFT lending service, would stop matching new loans.

Borrowers must repay outstanding loans by the deadline or risk default. Blur also plans to introduce a separate withdrawal tool after the website closes, but it has not confirmed when the tool will become available.

The shutdown will not terminate Blur’s underlying Ethereum smart contracts, which will remain operational. BLUR tokenholders will retain control of the protocol’s fee switch, allowing them to vote on whether trading fees should be introduced.

The announcement follows Blast’s October 2 shutdown decision. Blast is an Ethereum scaling network created by Roquerre, also known as Pacman, and developed by the team behind Blur.

Blast previously attracted more than $2 billion in assets, partly through incentives for users who deposited funds. By the time developers announced the closure, the network’s assets had fallen to approximately $32 million. The team said operating costs had surpassed the revenue generated by the project.

Blur’s Trading Volume Collapses From Its 2023 High

Launched in 2022, Blur challenged OpenSea by focusing on professional NFT traders and offering faster transactions, lower fees, and token-based rewards.

The approach helped Blur capture more than 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023, when monthly activity reached roughly $1.43 billion, according to DefiLlama data.

By March 2026, monthly volume had dropped below $7 million, representing a decline of more than 99.5% from the peak.

Despite processing billions of dollars in NFT trades, Blur generated no marketplace transaction-fee revenue because trading was free. Token Terminal data shows zero protocol revenue over the past three years, although that figure does not clarify whether the lending service or other activities generated income.

The marketplace’s reward programs also attracted criticism for encouraging speculative activity and putting pressure on royalties paid to NFT creators. Still, trading figures alone cannot determine how much activity came from genuine NFT purchases rather than traders seeking incentives.

BLUR Drops After Shutdown Plans Emerge

Unlike Blast, Blur has not publicly attributed its website closure to operating losses.

Its website continues to advertise zero marketplace fees and more than $7.4 billion in lifetime trading volume, highlighting the scale of its earlier growth.

BLUR fell more than 20% following Monday’s announcement, trading near $0.015.

Blast users have until October 26 to withdraw their assets through the network’s standard interface. Blur’s website will close on November 12, creating a separate deadline for users who depend on its primary interface to access the marketplace and lending service.