SMS
- Blur will shut down the frontend of its NFT marketplace, blur.io, on November 12, but the marketplace protocol will continue to operate on-chain.
- Its NFT lending platform, Blend, will cease matching new loans on the same day, and borrowers must repay their loans or allow them to default before then.
- Statista forecasts that the global NFT market revenue will reach $318.3 million in 2026, significantly lower than the peaks in 2021 and 2022.
The Ethereum NFT marketplace Blur has announced that it will shut down its website on November 12.
This deactivation applies only to the blur.io frontend. The Blur team states that the Blur market protocol will continue to operate on-chain, and BLUR token holders will continue to control their fee switch.
“1/ https://t.co/zPQ1jqR7pT The frontend will be discontinued on November 12, 2026. This discontinuation applies only to the frontend; the Blur market protocol will continue to operate on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch,” Blur stated on October 12.
Blend is Blur’s peer-to-peer NFT lending platform, which will cease matching new loans on the same day. Borrowers must repay their loans or allow them to default before then; Blur stated that a tool will subsequently be provided to help users withdraw assets from Blend.
Blur and the NFT Market
Blur was launched in 2022 and airdropped tokens to traders, quickly surpassing OpenSea in trading volume. Critics later questioned whether its incentive mechanism contributed to lowering NFT prices.
Since then, the NFT market has significantly contracted. According to Statista, global NFT market revenue is projected to reach $318.3 million in 2026, roughly flat compared to last year and far below the peaks seen in 2021 and 2022.
CryptoSlam data shows that monthly NFT sales in September dropped to $167.2 million, down from $554.8 million a year ago and far below the $1.78 billion recorded in December 2023—just a fraction of the billions in monthly volume seen during the market’s peak in 2021 and 2022.
DappRadar stated that cheaper NFTs increased the number of sales, but trading volume dropped significantly.
This move follows Blast, an Ethereum Layer 2 network launched by the Blur team in November 2023, which announced earlier this month that it is shutting down due to operating costs exceeding revenue. Before its mainnet launch in February 2024, Blast attracted over $2.3 billion in deposits and has given users until October 26 to withdraw their funds through its interface.