According to a recent report from Glassnode, Blur [BLUR] has significantly garnered attention since its inception in October 2022 and has surpassed OpenSea, the market leader in NFT transfer volume.
Blur Scores Big Wins In Rapid Rise To The Top Of The NFT Market
According to the on-chain data provider, Blur’s market share boosted after its token AirDrop on February 14. The NFT marketplace and aggregator owned 48% of the whole market’s NFT transfer volume before the BLUR token AirDrop. Yet after the AirDrop, the volume of NFT transfers increased significantly, reaching a peak of 78%.
As a result of BLUR’s AirDrop, this had a substantial impact on OpenSea, as its NFT transfer volume fell by 21%.
Glassnode noted that Blur’s success within a few months of its inception was since it is a professional trading platform for NFTs with a zero-trading-fee approach and optional royalty payments.
Furthermore, after conducting an AirDrop of BLUR tokens, the platform introduced a token reward mechanism to encourage users to place bids. This has resulted in deeper markets and more frequent NFT sales, which has improved liquidity and the overall trading experience.
OpenSea sought to counter Blur’s success by reorganizing its cost structure and policies, but this had little effect because the platforms serve distinct user populations.
Also, Blur has a substantially greater daily sales frequency per unique user than OpenSea. According to Glassnode, this results in a “flywheel effect” wherein more sellers feel secure listing on Blur’s platform, resulting in a larger availability that draws more buyers.
Comparing the sale sizes of the two marketplaces, Glassnode determined that Blur’s strategy has produced a more lucrative sales environment, as indicated by sale values ranging from 0.3 to 1.3 ETH. OpenSea, on the other hand, has maintained a consistent average of roughly 0.2 ETH for several months.
Impact On The Ethereum Network
According to Glassnode, Blur’s actions did not significantly impact network adoption, despite the potential increase in demand for blockspace and validator fees on Ethereum. This finding challenges the belief held by some that Blur’s activity led to a noticeable change in network adoption.
Despite the increase in on-chain activity, the current number of new addresses is 40% lower than the corresponding period in the previous year, indicating a negative momentum.
Glassnode stated that the recent surge of interest in NFTs seems to be mainly appealing to existing users and has not been successful in attracting new users to the Ethereum network. This implies that the NFT marketplaces and most protocols are competing for the same group of preexisting users who are already familiar with cryptocurrency.
