Blur Review: An NFT Flipper’s Paradise

Blur takes NFT buying and selling to the subsequent stage with a number of latest, modern options. 

What Is Blur? 

A brand new NFT market is making waves on Ethereum.

Blur is a community-driven NFT market and aggregator designed with professional merchants in thoughts. It introduces many new options and quality-of-life updates over different main marketplaces, making the NFT buying and selling expertise extra streamlined and intuitive.

The platform aggregates NFT listings from main marketplaces like OpenSea, LooksRare, and X2Y2, whereas additionally permitting customers to listing their property natively on Blur. In contrast to many different NFT marketplaces that cost a fee on trades, Blur maintains 0% charges for promoting NFTs. 

{The marketplace} was first introduced in March 2022 and attracted a powerful social following by encouraging those that came upon concerning the in-development platform to refer pals to a waitlist. These with essentially the most referrals and some choose group members got entry to check Blur in closed beta earlier than it launched to the general public on October 19. 

Crypto Briefing took a take a look at Blur to see if the newest improvement on this planet of NFT buying and selling has been well worth the wait. We’ve judged it in 5 key areas: ease of use, options, group and backers, tokenomics, and the way a lot traction it has generated to this point. Right here’s what we thought. 

Ease of Use (3/5)

Getting began with Blur is straightforward. After navigating to the platform’s touchdown web page, customers are prompted to attach their Web3 pockets (it at present helps MetaMask and WalletConnect wallets) and begin exploring the varied NFT collections on the location. 

Collections are listed so as of their one-day buying and selling quantity by default and are introduced in a method that exhibits key knowledge factors similar to ground worth, variety of homeowners, and numerous worth and quantity metrics at a look. Customers also can see all of the Ethereum-based NFTs of their pockets through Blur’s portfolio tab. Right here, it’s simple to trace listed NFTs, their rarities, estimated assortment worth, and even a tough lifetime revenue and loss assertion. 

Blur’s interface could be very customizable. Customers can swap between a number of views, similar to lists and tiles, when wanting via collections, relying on their choice. In contrast to OpenSea, the place customers want to modify tabs to see gross sales historical past or different analytics, on Blur shows every part on a single web page, making it simpler to entry and evaluate all related assortment knowledge. Different small accessibility options, similar to darkish/mild mode, gasoline charge trackers, and an ETH worth feed, additionally come as normal. 

Nevertheless, whereas Blur’s interface isn’t missing intimately, the quantity of information proven on display screen could be daunting for much less skilled customers. The platform feels prefer it’s focusing on superior customers and is extra harking back to a Bloomberg Terminal than the user-friendly interfaces of eBay or Amazon. With a lot info on the display screen at one time, navigating the interface can take a little bit of getting used to. However for these keen to take the time to get used to what Blur has to supply, the advantages over different NFT marketplaces are clear. 

Total, whereas Blur isn’t tough to make use of, it might undoubtedly be made extra welcoming. Moreover, although the platform’s retro wave aesthetic provides it loads of character, the tough orange tones and clashing monochrome palette might make the consumer expertise abrasive for some. 

Options (5/5)

What Blur might lack in accessibility, it greater than makes up for with its abundance of modern options. 

The platform claims that it runs as much as ten instances sooner than different NFT aggregators, displaying pending transactions on NFTs in lower than a second, and updating listings each 4 seconds. The lightning-fast pending transactions show, mixed with near-instant metadata updates on assortment artwork reveals, provides Blur customers an enormous benefit in sniping NFTs. Moreover, Blur’s gasoline precedence presets assist customers outcompete these shopping for NFTs via different exchanges or aggregators by getting their buy transactions processed first. The cherry on high is that Blur’s contracts are extra optimized than different marketplaces, saving customers as much as 17% on gasoline charges. 

One other widely-praised function is how Blur’s interface clearly shows the rarity of various NFT traits and even permits customers to see the ground worth for particular attributes. As a substitute of trawling via listings and previous gross sales to precisely worth your above-floor-price NFTs, Blur does all of the arduous be just right for you by discovering the bottom listings for every particular person trait and presenting the information in an simply digestible format. This function helps customers precisely worth their very own property and also can help these seeking to snipe NFTs with undervalued attributes. 

Blur additionally excels forward of its opponents by providing instruments to assist customers “sweep the ground”—slang for purchasing a number of of the lowest-priced NFTs from a given assortment. All collections function a ground depth chart displaying what number of NFTs are listed at numerous intervals above the ground, serving to potential sweepers visualize how their purchases will influence the market. Sweeping on Blur additionally consists of a few essential quality-of-life updates, similar to skipping NFTs that have already got pending transactions (once more, serving to save gasoline) and skipping over NFTs marked as suspicious or stolen. And in relation to reselling these swept NFTs, Blur has customers coated with its gas-optimized bulk itemizing and delisting features. 

The one actual criticism of Blur’s options is that they’re at present solely obtainable for Ethereum-based NFTs. Nevertheless, the Blur group has hinted that it plans to combine NFTs on different chains similar to Polygon sooner or later. 

Crew and Backers (4/5)

In March 2022, Blur raised $11 million in its seed spherical led by main crypto enterprise capital agency Paradigm. As certainly one of crypto’s most profitable VC companies, Paradigm’s funding in Blur shouldn’t be underestimated. The agency has beforehand backed many winners within the NFT house, with marketplaces OpenSea and Magic Eden additionally holding spots in its portfolio. 

The elevate additionally noticed participation from a number of main gamers within the NFT and crypto scene, such because the pseudonymous collectors 6529, Cozomo de’ Medici, Zeneca, and MoonOverlord. Help from NFT thought leaders like these are additionally an excellent signal and exhibits that Blur’s incentives are possible extra carefully aligned with the broader NFT group.

Nevertheless, whereas the standard of Blur’s backers and traders is excessive, there may be nonetheless one essential issue that customers ought to perceive. Your complete Blur group is at present nameless, selecting to not reveal their real-life identities and as an alternative talk via pseudonymous on-line personas. Nameless groups like Blur will not be unusual in crypto—a number of the house’s greatest and most trusted builders have additionally chosen to stay nameless. Nevertheless, when a group is nameless, it limits its accountability. It’s completely doable a group member might flip rogue and injury the undertaking sooner or later. One other concern is {that a} core group member’s identification may very well be revealed as somebody with a lower than the respected background, as was the case when Wonderland’s 0xSifu was revealed to be the previous convict and QuadrigaCX co-founder Michael Patryn. 

Though we don’t know the identities of the Blur group, no less than a few of those that have invested possible know who’s behind it. Buyers like Paradigm have an excellent observe file of investing in respected tasks, decreasing the danger of nasty surprises. Moreover, Blur has revealed that its group members maintain expertise throughout MIT, Citadel, 5 Rings Capital, Twitch, Brex, Sq., and Y Combinator, additional including to the undertaking’s reputability. 

Tokenomics (3/5)

There’s not a lot to be stated about Blur’s token construction for the time being. Though the undertaking has introduced a BLUR governance token will launch via an airdrop in January 2023, important particulars similar to the utmost provide and seed investor allocation have but to be revealed. Nonetheless, the truth that Blur has confirmed a token places it forward of the main NFT market OpenSea when it comes to decentralization and rewarding its group. 

Blur has been very clear about what customers can do within the token launch run-up to obtain a BLUR airdrop. Firstly, anybody who traded NFTs on Ethereum throughout the previous six months mechanically qualifies for no less than one care bundle of BLUR tokens. From right here, there are a number of issues customers who each did and didn’t obtain the primary airdrop can do to earn tokens in a second, bigger drop scheduled for January. 

In accordance with a Blur blog post, customers can enhance the quantity of BLUR tokens they obtain in January by itemizing NFTs from lively collections, utilizing the platform’s numerous itemizing instruments, similar to itemizing by ground worth or trait ground worth, and inserting no less than three sweeps on collections via Blur. Moreover, customers who respect assortment royalties as an alternative of setting them to 0 can even obtain extra tokens. Lastly, Blur loyalty can even have an effect on the rarity of care packages acquired, with larger rarities yielding extra tokens. To make sure a consumer’s loyalty stays excessive, they need to listing NFTs on Blur on the identical or a lower cost than on different marketplaces. 

Traction (4/5)

Within the two weeks since Blur’s public launch, it has generated an excellent quantity of use amongst NFT fans. In accordance with the official Blur Twitter account, the platform outpaced Gem because the highest-volume NFT aggregator simply three days after its launch. 

Nevertheless, it wasn’t till the highly-anticipated Artwork Gobblers NFT mint on October 31 that Blur’s true potential was revealed. Due to Blur’s real-time knowledge feed of NFT gross sales and listings, these seeking to commerce the Artwork Gobblers drop flocked to the platform in droves. Blur recorded a day by day buying and selling quantity of 8,453.7 ETH, not far behind main market OpenSea’s 12,275 ETH. 

A Dune dashboard created by consumer takamori exhibits that the Artwork Gobbler’s increase pushed Blur forward of rival marketplaces X2Y2 and LooksRare, inserting it firmly within the quantity two spot behind OpenSea for 30-day buying and selling quantity. Moreover, evaluating Dune knowledge from customers’ sealaunch and rchen8 reveals that since Blur launched on October 19, OpenSea’s Ethereum buying and selling volumes have registered a visual decline whereas Blur’s elevated, indicating {that a} vital quantity of buying and selling quantity has left the highest market for Blur. 

On social media, Blur can also be off to a powerful begin, racking up over 127,000 Twitter followers and 108,000 Discord members. Even when solely a fraction of those followers begin utilizing the platform, Blur ought to be capable of seize a big chunk of the NFT market share away from different platforms. Nevertheless, it’s additionally value noting that Blur’s airdrop marketing campaign is probably going serving to to extend its buying and selling volumes. Many NFT merchants shall be making some extent to make use of Blur to extend their allocation of BLUR tokens. Whether or not these customers will stay after the January airdrop stays to be seen. 

Whereas it’s nonetheless early days for Blur, the platform has accomplished very nicely to seize as a lot use because it has in such a brief period of time. Blur is clearly on its option to turning into a priceless and lasting piece of Web3 infrastructure. Nevertheless, because the platform’s audience is usually skilled merchants, Blur might have problem rising with newer entrants to the crypto and NFT house. This might restrict the platform’s medium to long-term development if it doesn’t discover a option to deal with this situation.

Last Ideas

Blur exhibits that regardless of the present crypto winter, there are nonetheless lively and devoted groups of builders who imagine within the long-term imaginative and prescient of crypto know-how. From a technical perspective, Blur blows different NFT marketplaces and aggregators out of the water, and its use throughout the Artwork Gobblers mint is a testomony to this reality. 

Nonetheless, though the standard of what Blur provides will not be in query, whether or not it could actually discover mass adoption could be. Whereas there’s a devoted group of hardcore NFT flippers who will possible solely use Blur going ahead, newer or extra informal NFT consumers might not see the options Blur provides a worthwhile tradeoff over the benefit of use supplied by marketplaces like OpenSea. As crypto and NFT adoption will increase, Blur additionally has the potential to develop its consumer base. Nevertheless, if Blur desires a shot at overtaking OpenSea, it might want to discover a option to keep true to skilled merchants whereas making its platform extra accessible and pleasant for a broader viewers. Total, Crypto Briefing provides Blur a 4/5 score. 

Disclosure: On the time of penning this overview, the writer owned ETH and several other different crypto property.