Blur, once the leading Ethereum NFT marketplace, will shut its website on 12 November 2026 as trading activity falls far below the levels that made it a dominant force in the sector.
The company said in a Monday post on X that its “frontend will be deprecated on Nov. 12, 2026”. Traders will no longer be able to use the branded Blur website, although the underlying trading protocol will remain available through smart contract interactions and aggregators.
Blur’s NFT-backed lending platform, Blend, will also stop facilitating loans on the same date. “Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default,” the company said in a separate X post. After the deadline, Blur said it would provide a frontend tool allowing users to withdraw their assets from Blend.
Blur launched in late 2022, after the NFT boom of 2021 and early 2022 had begun to subside. It quickly disrupted the market, overtaking established rival OpenSea early the following year.
Its growth was driven largely by an airdrop of BLUR tokens to traders, helping generate billions of dollars in Ethereum NFT transactions. The strategy was controversial, however, with some collectors arguing that the resulting rush of rapid buying and selling damaged the value of NFTs. Some analysts described the activity as “wash trading”.
Blur defended its approach to Decrypt in 2023, saying the increase in trading was “misunderstood” by some analysts. But the platform continued to face criticism as NFT prices fell across the market, while its early momentum weakened as token incentives became less attractive amid a decline in the value of BLUR.
Data from Token Terminal shows that OpenSea has regained the lead over the past year, recording $557 million in NFT trading volume compared with $235 million for Blur. Blur recorded $19.15 million in trading volume across September, compared with a peak of nearly $1.43 billion in March 2023.
The announcement prompted hostile reactions from some collectors. One X user wrote: “Good riddance. You destroyed NFTs. Please shut down and never come back.” Another said Blur’s departure could be the “bottom signal for NFTs”.
Blur founder Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre also announced earlier this month that Blast, an Ethereum Layer 2 network launched in 2024, would be taken offline on 26 October. Abstract, another Layer 2 network, is due to close in December.
Other NFT marketplaces have also withdrawn during 2026 as demand remains weak. Nifty Gateway and Foundation, both once prominent platforms, shut down this year, while Magic Eden significantly reduced its support for NFTs as it pivoted towards gambling.
The price of BLUR fell 35% in 24 hours on Tuesday to $0.0115, a new low. It is down 99.8% from its all-time high of above $5.00.
