Blur.io has taken the NFT marketplace by storm since its launch in October 2022. The platform has quickly become the largest trading platform for NFTs by volume, with a user-friendly interface that caters more to professional NFT traders than retail users.
Unlike other marketplaces, Blur offers batch shelf and floor-sweeping transactions in addition to order book NFT transactions, allowing traders to make batch operations more conveniently (buying NFTs with the lowest price at once). Buyers can not only browse NFTs on Blur but also on other NFT marketplaces and place orders directly through Blur with instant liquidity.
In terms of fees, Blur has a very trader-friendly fee structure and does not charge any transaction fees for users on the platform. In terms of royalties, which are mandatory for a certain percentage of secondary transactions on other marketplaces, Blur recommends a default royalty rate of 0.5% for buyers. However, this can be customized and even set to 0 if the user wishes. Overall, Blur.io offers a more convenient and cost-effective platform for professional NFT traders.
Blur was founded by PacmanBlur, an MIT-graduate and member of the Peter Thiel Fellowship. The product was built in conjunction with support from leading venture capitalists, such as Paradigm. The platform recently completed its $BLUR token airdrop after Season 1 of the incentivization program finished. Users were rewarded ‘Care Packages’ for providing liquidity and trading on the platform, which were available to be opened on the 14th of February. Some traders earned up to $3 million in $BLUR tokens and the project launched at an eye-watering $400 million valuation.
Blur has minted 3 billion BLUR tokens, which will be made accessible over 4 to 5 years. The token allocation is divided into 51% for the community, 29% for past and future core contributors, 19% for investors, and 1% for advisors. A community treasury of 360m BLUR tokens, equivalent to 12% of the total token supply, can be claimed by NFT traders, historical users of Blur, and creators.
The community treasury will distribute 39% of the BLUR supply through contributor grants, community initiatives, and incentive programs, with 10% allocated to the next incentive release. The vesting of BLUR tokens will occur continuously according to a set schedule for each group of token recipients.
Blur has grown to become the largest NFT Marketplace in the world with the help of their incentives program. It has successfully flipped OpenSea within 6 months of release due to its user-friendly UI, low fees, and deeper liquidity for NFTs. The platform boasts impressive stats with over 400,000 active users and $1.4 billion in traded volume according to Dune Analytics.
The Blur platform runs ten times faster than other NFT aggregators, displays the pending transactions on the NFT in less than one second, and updates the list every four seconds. The fast display of pending transactions, together with the nearly real-time metadata update on the collection art display, constitutes a huge advantage for users who want to quickly come in and out. In addition, Blur’s gas priority preset can help traders to outperform the competitors who purchase NFT through other exchanges or aggregators. Most importantly, the contract in Blur is more optimized than that in other markets, saving up to 17% on gas fees.
Another popular feature of Blur is that it can clearly show the rarity of different NFTs and the floor price under specific attributes. Rather than using sales history or a series list to evaluate NFTs that are priced higher than the floor price, Blur’s platform instead searches for the lowest priced NFTs based on their individual characteristics. This function can greatly simplify the process of finding undervalued NFTs, and thus it has become one of the main reasons why collectors and investors are drawn to Blur.
Additionally, the Blur team has also put a lot of effort into improving the user experience of their platform. The website is user-friendly, visually appealing, and easy to navigate, which makes it accessible to even those who are new to the world of NFTs. The team has also made sure that the platform is secure, reliable, and can handle a high volume of transactions without any technical glitches or issues. This has resulted in a seamless experience for users, which has contributed to the platform’s success.
Comparison to other platforms
Blur has emerged as a dominant player in the NFT marketplace due to its unique features, user-friendly interface, and emphasis on security and reliability. With the growing popularity of NFTs, it will be interesting to see how Blur continues to innovate and stay ahead of the competition in the coming years.
The launch of Blur has immediately pushed OpenSea to launch OpenSea Pro, their version of an aggregator. OpenSea Pro aims to compete with this by offering a similar experience, but with added benefits.
One of the key features of OpenSea Pro is its advanced search capabilities. Users can filter and sort through millions of NFTs with ease, making it easier to find exactly what they’re looking for. It also offers better curation tools, enabling collectors to create and manage collections of their favorite NFTs.
OpenSea Pro also boasts faster transaction times and lower gas fees than the regular OpenSea platform. This is due to its integration with a Layer 2 solution called Polygon. Transactions on Polygon are faster and cheaper than on the Ethereum network, which is the main blockchain used by OpenSea.
Another advantage of OpenSea Pro is its dedicated customer support team. OpenSea has received criticism in the past for its lack of customer support, and OpenSea Pro aims to address this by offering a dedicated team that is available to answer questions and resolve issues.
OpenSea Pro is currently in beta, but it’s already making waves in the NFT community. Its advanced features and improved user experience make it a strong competitor to other platforms, including Blur. If you’re an NFT collector or seller, it’s definitely worth checking out.
