Blur to Shut Down Weeks After Blast Announces Closure

Once the dominant NFT marketplace on Ethereum, Blur is shutting down its website and NFT lending services just ten days after its sister project Blast announced its own closure.

What's the Scoop?

• Blur Shutting Down: In an announcement Monday, Blur said it will retire its website on November 12, though its underlying NFT marketplace will remain operational onchain. The BLUR token will also retain control of the protocol's fee switch, which determines whether the marketplace can charge trading fees.

• NFT Lending Ending: Blur's NFT lending platform, Blend, will stop matching new loans on November 12. Existing borrowers must repay their loans by then or allow them to default, with Blur promising a separate tool afterward to help users withdraw their remaining assets.

• Trading Volume Collapses: Launched in 2022, Blur quickly overtook OpenSea, capturing over 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023, when it processed ~$1.43B in trades. By March 2026, that figure had fallen below $7M, a collapse of over 99.5%. Despite billions in trading volume, its zero-fee marketplace generated no trading-fee revenue.

• Blast Shutdown: The news comes just ten days after the shutdown of Ethereum L2 Blast, also run by Blur's founder Pacman, citing operating costs exceeding revenue. The network, which once attracted over $2.3B in deposits, has given users until October 26 to withdraw through its regular interface.