Blur, long the leading NFT marketplace on Ethereum, announced Monday the closure of its site for November 12. Monthly volumes have fallen from around $1.43 billion at the March 2023 peak to less than 7 million today, without the platform ever charging any fees.
In brief
- Blur will close its blur.io site on November 12, 2026. The Blend lending service will also stop making new loans on this date.
- Its monthly volumes have fallen more than 99% since their peak in March 2023, while the protocol’s revenue has remained zero.
- The BLUR token lost more than 20% after the announcement, ten days after that of the closure of the Blast network, developed by the same team.
Blur loses ground after its meteoric rise
Launched in 2022, Blur quickly won over NFT traders thanks to three arguments: fast transactions, no fees and token rewards. This strategy allowed it to overtake OpenSea and capture nearly 70% of NFT trading on Ethereum in March 2023, with $1.43 billion in monthly volume.
Since then, the trend has been reversed. The NFT market has been losing steam for several months, and Blur is bearing the brunt of this slowdown. In March 2026, its monthly volumes fell below $7 million, a decline of more than 99.5% from the 2023 peak.
On Monday, the platform announced its closure on X. This message marked its return to the social network after more than a year of silence. Yet his site still boasts zero fees and $7.4 billion in cumulative volume.
Zero commission, but also zero income
Behind these billions of dollars exchanged, Blur’s economic model shows its limits. The platform has never charged commissions and, according to Token Terminal dataits protocol has not generated any revenue in the last three years.
In fall 2025, OpenSea doubled its NFT fees to fund its development. Blur kept it free to attract traders. However, without any revenue of its own, its business largely depended on rewards distributed to users and the hope of a market recovery.
These campaigns have also fueled speculation and increased pressure on creators’ royalties. Some collectors therefore welcome the closure.
Blast and Blur, two withdrawals in ten days
On October 2, Blast, the Ethereum scaling network created by the same team, announced its closure. His assets grew from over $2 billion to around $32 million. Users must withdraw their funds before October 26.
Both projects are linked to Tieshun Roquerre, known under the pseudonym Pacman. For Blur, however, the closure concerns the site, and not the contracts on Ethereum, which remain active. BLUR holders also retain control of the fee mechanism.
For their part, Blend users must repay their loans or accept default by November 12. Blur has clarified the terms of this deadline on and promises a removal tool.
After the announcement, the BLUR token fell by more than 20%, around $0.015. Unlike Blast, which cited costs exceeding its revenues, Blur did not explain the reasons for its withdrawal.
In September, global sales of NFTs reached $167 million for 2.9 million transactions, according to CryptoSlam, compared to $6 billion in January 2022. The closure of Blur thus marks the end of an era, without sounding the death knell for NFTs.
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