OpenSea charges sellers a 1% platform fee on NFT sales, plus any creator earnings the collection sets, and both buyers and sellers pay blockchain gas fees for on-chain actions. Gas is now cheap on most networks: on October 21, 2026, Etherscan estimated an NFT sale on Ethereum at about $0.08, and on Base, Polygon and Solana a transaction costs a fraction of that. Among the other major marketplaces, Magic Eden and Tensor charge 2% on Solana, Rarible charges 2% on its EVM chains and 1.5% on Solana, and Blur charges nothing but is closing its website on November 12, 2026.
This guide explains every fee you can pay on OpenSea, how gas works for each action, and how OpenSea compares with Magic Eden, Tensor, Rarible, Blur and LooksRare on cost.
OpenSea Fees vs Other NFT Marketplaces at a Glance MarketplacePlatform FeeWho PaysCreator RoyaltiesMain ChainsStatus (October 2026)OpenSea1% on NFT salesSeller (included in the listed price)Enforced or optional, set by collectionEthereum, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, Solana and 15+ moreActiveMagic Eden2%Taken on each transactionOptional (buyer chooses 0%, 50% or 100%), mandatory on some collectionsSolana onlyActive, Solana only since March 2026Tensor2% taker, 0% makerTaker (the side that accepts a listing or bid)Taker pays; optional royalties can be none, half or fullSolana onlyActive, run by the Tensor FoundationRarible2% on Ethereum, Base and Polygon; 1.5% on SolanaSellerSet by collection, deducted from proceedsEthereum, Base, Polygon, SolanaActive, brand acquired by IMPOSSIBLEBlur0%NoneRoyalty rules set by the protocolEthereumWebsite closes November 12, 2026LooksRare0.5% (since April 2023)SellerPaid to collection ownersEthereumLittle to no trading activity Sources: official help centers and documentation of OpenSea, Magic Eden, Tensor, Rarible and LooksRare, and project announcements, as of October 21, 2026.
What Fees Does OpenSea Charge? According to OpenSea’s help center, the platform charges:
1% on NFT sales. The fee is included in the price buyers see, so it comes out of the seller’s proceeds. 10% on primary drops. When creators sell newly minted NFTs through an OpenSea drop, OpenSea takes 10% of the mint price. 0% on private listings, which are listings reserved for a specific buyer. 0% OpenSea fee on token swaps. Third-party providers involved in a swap may still charge their own fees. OpenSea has changed its fee several times. It charged 2.5% for years, cut the fee to 0.5% with the launch of its rebuilt OS2 platform in 2025, and then raised it to 1% on all chains from September 15, 2025, as part of the final phase of its rewards program. In March 2026, when it postponed the launch of its SEA token, OpenSea waived trading fees for 60 days from March 31 and said a new fee structure for active traders would follow. OpenSea’s help center lists the fee at 1% as of October 2026. Fees are set when a listing or offer is created, and OpenSea says it can waive them on certain sales.
Our OpenSea review covers the platform beyond fees.
Creator Earnings on OpenSea Creator earnings, or royalties, are separate from OpenSea’s fee and go to the collection’s creator. On collections with enforced earnings, the set percentage is paid on every sale. On collections with optional earnings, the seller chooses how much to pay when listing or accepting an offer; the default is the creator’s preferred rate, and there is no minimum. Royalty rates vary by collection and are often between 0% and 10%, so they can cost more than the platform fee itself.
How Gas Fees Work on OpenSea Gas fees go to the validators of the blockchain you trade on, not to OpenSea. OpenSea does not set them and cannot refund them, and you pay them in the chain’s native token, such as ETH on Ethereum.
ActionGas Required?Connecting your walletNoFirst listing of an NFT from a collection (one-time approval)Yes, once per collectionLater fixed-price listings in the same collectionNoFirst offer with a new currency, such as WETH (one-time approval)Yes, onceLater offersNoLowering the price of a listing (ERC-721)NoRaising a price or canceling a listingYesCanceling an offerNo, though an on-chain cancellation is optionalBuying an NFTYes, paid by the buyerAccepting an offerYes, paid by the sellerTransferring or minting an NFTYes Source: OpenSea help center, as of October 2026.
The main takeaway is that listings are signed off-chain and cost nothing after the first approval, while anything that moves an NFT or cancels a listing on-chain costs gas. OpenSea lets you cancel all listings and offers in one transaction per chain, which costs less than canceling them one by one.
How Much Is Gas on OpenSea Right Now? Gas costs have fallen sharply since the NFT boom of 2021 and 2022. On Ethereum, average gas was about 0.051 gwei on the morning of October 21, 2026, and Etherscan estimated an NFT sale at about $0.08 with ETH near $2,450.
BlockchainGas Price (October 21, 2026)Typical CostEthereum~0.051 gwei~$0.08 for an NFT sale (Etherscan estimate)Base~0.005 gwei~$0.002 for a token swap (Basescan estimate); NFT trades cost a fraction of a centPolygon~246 gwei base fee, POL near $0.10About a cent, by our estimateSolana5,000 lamports per signature, plus an optional priority feeAbout $0.0005 per signature at SOL near $107 Sources: Etherscan and Basescan gas trackers, the Polygon gas station and Solana’s fee documentation, morning of October 21, 2026. Gas prices change by the minute and spike during busy periods.
In practice, the platform fee and creator earnings now cost far more than gas on any of these chains. On a $500 NFT, OpenSea’s 1% fee is $5 and a 5% royalty is another $25, while gas on Ethereum is under a dollar at current prices.
OpenSea vs Magic Eden, Tensor, Rarible and Blur Magic Eden charges 2% on all transactions and nothing to list, and it has supported only Solana since March 9, 2026, when it ended its Ethereum, EVM and Bitcoin marketplaces. On Solana, royalties are optional for most collections, and the buyer chooses whether to pay all, half or none of them. See our Magic Eden review.
Tensor, the main Solana trading platform, charges a 2% fee to the taker and nothing to the maker, so placing a listing or bid that someone else accepts costs no platform fee. Since November 2025, the Tensor Foundation runs the marketplace and sends all of its fees to the TNSR treasury.
Rarible charges 2% on Ethereum, Base and Polygon and 1.5% on Solana, paid by the seller, and adds a 2% fee when buyers purchase listings it aggregates from other marketplaces on EVM chains. IMPOSSIBLE acquired the Rarible brand and key platform assets in 2026.
Blur charged no marketplace fee and became the largest Ethereum NFT marketplace by volume in 2023, but its monthly volume has since collapsed by more than 99%. Its website will shut down on November 12, 2026, while its smart contracts stay live on-chain. Read our report on Blur shutting down its marketplace.
LooksRare cut its fee to 0.5% in April 2023, but trading on the platform has dried up, and it now focuses on other products.
For Solana collections, Magic Eden and Tensor are the main options at 2%. For Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, OpenSea’s 1% is now one of the lowest fees among marketplaces that are still actively traded.
How to Pay Less When Trading NFTs Trade on low-cost chains. Base, Polygon, Arbitrum and Solana keep gas to fractions of a cent. Approve once, then list for free. After the first listing in a collection, new listings and price cuts cost no gas on OpenSea. Lower prices instead of canceling. Reducing a price is free on ERC-721 NFTs, while canceling or raising a price costs gas. Cancel in bulk. OpenSea’s cancel-all option clears listings and offers in one transaction per chain. Use private listings for agreed sales to a specific buyer, which currently carry a 0% OpenSea fee. Be the maker on Tensor. Listings and bids that others accept carry no Tensor fee. Check royalties before buying or selling. On many collections they cost more than the platform fee. The NFT Market in 2026 Lower fees have not brought back volume. NFT sales totaled about $167.2 million in September 2026, according to CryptoSlam data, down from about $554.8 million a year earlier and about $1.78 billion in December 2023. Marketplaces have responded by consolidating: Magic Eden narrowed to Solana, Rarible changed hands, Blur is closing its website, and OpenSea has expanded into token trading, opening its mobile app with trading across more than 25 blockchains to all users on October 20, 2026. Follow the market in our NFT news section.
Data sources: OpenSea help center and developer changelog, Magic Eden help center, Tensor documentation, Rarible FAQ, LooksRare documentation, Etherscan and Basescan gas trackers, Polygon gas station, Solana documentation, CryptoSlam via Decrypt, and project announcements, as of October 21, 2026. Fees can change at any time; check each marketplace before trading.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Frequently Asked Questions What fees does OpenSea charge?
OpenSea charges a 1% platform fee on NFT sales, included in the price buyers see, and 10% on primary drop mints. Private listings carry a 0% fee, and OpenSea charges no fee of its own on token swaps. Creator earnings set by each collection and blockchain gas fees come on top. The 1% fee has applied on all chains since September 15, 2025.
Do buyers pay fees on OpenSea?
Buyers do not pay OpenSea’s 1% platform fee, which comes out of the seller’s proceeds. Buyers do pay blockchain gas when they purchase an NFT, and on collections with enforced creator earnings, the royalty is part of the sale. On Ethereum, gas for an NFT sale was estimated at about $0.08 on October 21, 2026, and it is lower on Base, Polygon and Solana.
How much are gas fees on OpenSea?
It depends on the blockchain and network activity. On October 21, 2026, Etherscan estimated an Ethereum NFT sale at about $0.08 with gas near 0.051 gwei, while Base, Polygon and Solana cost a cent or less. Listing is free after a one-time approval per collection, but buying, accepting offers, transferring and canceling listings all cost gas.
Which NFT marketplace has the lowest fees?
Blur charges no marketplace fee but is closing its website on November 12, 2026, and LooksRare’s 0.5% fee comes with almost no trading activity. Among active marketplaces, OpenSea’s 1% fee is the lowest for Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, while Magic Eden and Tensor charge 2% on Solana, with Tensor charging nothing to the maker side of a trade.
Is OpenSea cheaper than Magic Eden?
On platform fees, yes: OpenSea charges 1% on NFT sales, while Magic Eden charges 2% on all transactions. The two now serve different markets, though. Magic Eden has supported only Solana since March 2026, where gas costs fractions of a cent, while OpenSea covers Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Solana and many other chains. Creator royalties often matter more than either fee.
Are creator royalties mandatory on OpenSea?
Only on collections that enforce them. On those, the set percentage is paid on every sale. On collections with optional creator earnings, the seller decides how much to pay, starting from the creator’s preferred rate, with no minimum. OpenSea’s Deals feature, which lets users swap NFTs directly, does not include creator earnings.
Is Blur still open?
Blur’s website, blur.io, will shut down on November 12, 2026, according to the team’s October 12 announcement, after its monthly trading volume fell more than 99% from its 2023 peak. Its smart contracts will stay live on-chain, and its Blend lending product will stop matching new loans on the same date. Users with funds in Blur’s lending products should review their positions before the closure.
OpenSea was there at the beginning. Founded in 2017, before most people knew what an NFT was, it became the marketplace where the world discovered digital ownership. At its peak in January 2022, it facilitated over $5 billion in a single month of trading volume. CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, Art Blocks: they all changed hands on OpenSea.
Then came the NFT bear market, Blur’s aggressive zero-fee campaign, Magic Eden’s rise on Solana, and a Wells notice from the SEC in August 2024. By early 2025, OpenSea’s market share had fallen from 90% to approximately 33%, and its critics were asking whether the original NFT marketplace had been permanently dethroned.
The answer, as of 2026, is no, but OpenSea is a fundamentally different platform than the one that dominated 2021. OS2, its complete ground-up rebuild launched in February 2025, transformed it from an NFT-only marketplace into a multi-chain digital asset hub trading both NFTs and fungible tokens. Marketplace fees dropped from 2.5% to 0.5% with OS2 and have been 1% on NFT sales since September 2025. The SEC closed its investigation in February 2025 without enforcement action. And with over 467,000 monthly active users by May 2025, its highest since mid-2023, and $2.6 billion in October 2025 trading volume, OpenSea has staged one of the most significant product comebacks in Web3. In 2026, it postponed the launch of its SEA token without a new date and, on October 20, opened its cross-chain mobile app to all users.
This review covers OpenSea’s features, fees, supported chains, security, OS2, the delayed $SEA token, and how it compares to Blur and Magic Eden in 2026.
Disclaimer: This review is for informational purposes only. NFTs and cryptocurrencies are high-risk assets. Always do your own research before trading.
OpenSea at a Glance MetricValueFounded2017Co-foundersDevin Finzer (CEO), Alex Atallah (CTO)HeadquartersMiami, FloridaPlatform VersionOS2 (launched February 2025, out of beta May 2025)Total Funding$425M+ (a16z, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Coatue)Peak Valuation$13.3 billion (Series C, January 2022)All-Time Trading Volume$40 billion+NFTs Listed80 million+Active Users (May 2025)467,322 monthly (highest since mid-2023)Monthly Trading Volume$167M (Sep 2025), $2.6B (Oct 2025, includes tokens)Market Share~51% of NFT market (late 2025)Supported Blockchains22 listed in OpenSea’s help center (Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Avalanche, Ronin, Abstract, ApeChain, Soneium, Monad, and more)Marketplace Fee1% on NFT sales since September 15, 2025 (2.5% before OS2, 0.5% at the OS2 launch)Swap Fees0% OpenSea fee (third-party fees may apply)Native Token$SEA (launch postponed in March 2026, no new date)Rewards ProgramVoyages and Treasures (final rewards wave announced March 2026)Mobile AppiOS and Android app, open to all users since October 20, 2026SEC InvestigationClosed without action, February 21, 2025Rating8.5/10 Sources: OpenSea help center and announcements, DappRadar and Dune (2025 trading data). Fees and token status updated October 21, 2026.
What Is OpenSea? OpenSea is the world’s first and largest peer-to-peer NFT marketplace. It was founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, who built the platform on Ethereum as a place to buy, sell, and discover non-fungible tokens, a concept that barely existed in mainstream conversation at the time.
What made OpenSea significant was not just its first-mover advantage. It was its non-custodial model: OpenSea never holds your assets. When you list an NFT, it stays in your wallet. When you buy one, it transfers directly to your wallet on-chain. No central custody, no counterparty risk from the platform itself. This design built trust that OpenSea has maintained throughout its history, even during periods of high-profile exploit attempts.
For a full understanding of how NFTs and blockchain ownership work, see our NFT beginner’s guide.
The OS2 rebuild in 2025 represents a strategic pivot beyond NFTs. As Devin Finzer put it at the launch: “This represents an expansion of OpenSea from an NFT marketplace to a much broader platform for trading all types of digital assets. We think tokens and NFTs belong together in a single, powerful, delightful experience.” With OS2, OpenSea competes not just with Blur and Magic Eden but with multi-asset trading platforms across the entire on-chain economy.
OS2: The Complete Rebuild OS2 is OpenSea’s most significant product development since launch. Announced February 13, 2025 and fully out of beta on May 29, 2025, it replaces the legacy OpenSea experience entirely with a platform rebuilt from the ground up.
What Changed in OS2 Fees cut, then raised to 1%. The original OpenSea charged a 2.5% marketplace fee, among the highest in the NFT space. OS2 cut it to 0.5% to answer the competitive pressure from Blur’s zero-fee model, and on September 15, 2025, OpenSea raised it to 1% on all chains as part of the final phase of its rewards program. OpenSea charges no fee of its own on token swaps.
NFTs and tokens in one place. For the first time, OpenSea supports both NFT trading and fungible token trading on the same platform. Users can buy, sell, and swap ERC-20 tokens alongside NFTs without switching platforms. By October 2025, more than 90% of OpenSea’s $2.6B monthly volume came from token trading, demonstrating the scale of the multi-asset pivot.
Cross-chain trading without bridging. Users can purchase assets on one blockchain using tokens from another, with OpenSea handling the bridging process automatically. No manual bridge interaction, no switching wallets, no separate transactions.
More than 20 supported blockchains. OS2 launched with 19 chains, and OpenSea’s help center now lists 22, including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Avalanche, Ronin, Abstract, ApeChain, Soneium, HyperEVM and Monad, covering virtually every active NFT and DeFi ecosystem.
Two interface modes. OS2 introduced Collector Mode (emphasizing larger visuals, collection stories, and discovery tools) and Pro Mode (data-heavy analytics, order books, and portfolio management), serving both casual collectors and professional traders in one platform.
Mobile app. After a waitlist rollout, OpenSea opened its mobile app to all iOS and Android users on October 20, 2026. It offers trading of tokens and collectibles across more than 25 blockchains without manual bridging, a combined portfolio view and a social activity feed.
OpenSea attracted 82,000 new traders in a single week following the Solana integration on April 21, 2025, with new activity spikes on Arbitrum, Base, and Blast driving the surge. The platform reclaimed over 40% NFT market share in the months following OS2’s full launch.
Supported Blockchains OpenSea’s support for more than 20 chains is one of its strongest competitive advantages. Blur supports only Ethereum and is closing its website on November 12, 2026, and Magic Eden has supported only Solana since March 2026.
Ethereum remains the primary blockchain for high-value NFT trading on OpenSea. Major collections such as CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Art Blocks trade almost exclusively on Ethereum.
Solana was added to the original OpenSea in April 2022 and fully integrated into OS2 in April 2025. Solana’s speed and low fees make it the preferred chain for gaming NFTs, meme-adjacent collections, and high-frequency trading. OpenSea’s Solana support now includes fungible SOL token trading, not just NFTs.
Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism are Ethereum Layer-2 networks with significantly lower transaction fees than Ethereum mainnet, making them the preferred choice for new projects with cost-conscious communities. Base in particular saw significant NFT activity spikes on OpenSea in 2025, driven by Coinbase’s ecosystem.
Ronin is the blockchain purpose-built for gaming and home to Axie Infinity and other play-to-own games. OpenSea’s Ronin support gives it access to the gaming NFT audience that was previously served primarily by Ronin’s native marketplace.
OpenSea’s fee structure changed dramatically with OS2 and again in September 2025. Here is the complete picture as of October 2026:
Fee TypeLegacy OpenSeaOS2 (Current)Marketplace Fee2.5%1% on NFT sales (0.5% from the OS2 launch until September 15, 2025)Swap FeeNo token trading0% OpenSea fee (third-party fees may apply)Primary Drop MintsVaried10% of the mint pricePrivate ListingsStandard fee0%Creator RoyaltiesEnforced (5% to 10%)Enforced or optional, set by each collectionGas FeesUser paysUser paysMinting (OpenSea Studio)Free (lazy mint)Free (lazy mint) The 1% fee applies to NFT sales and is included in the price buyers see, so it comes out of the seller’s proceeds. Gas fees for on-chain transactions remain the user’s responsibility and vary by network: on October 21, 2026, Etherscan estimated an Ethereum NFT sale at about $0.08 in gas, while Solana and layer-2 networks cost fractions of a cent. Our guide to OpenSea fees compared with other NFT marketplaces breaks down every fee and gas cost.
Creator royalties depend on the collection. On collections with enforced creator earnings, the set percentage is paid on every sale. On collections with optional earnings, the seller chooses how much to pay when listing or accepting an offer, starting from the creator’s preferred rate, with no minimum. OpenSea moved away from universally enforced royalties under competitive pressure from Blur, which remains a point of contention with artists and creators who rely on secondary sale royalties as income.
The Prize Vault. OpenSea committed to funneling 50% of all platform fees into a prize vault for distribution to active users through the Voyages rewards program. The vault had accumulated $1 million in Optimism and Arbitrum tokens by September 2025, creating an additional incentive layer on top of the planned $SEA airdrop. In March 2026, OpenSea said the current rewards wave would be the last and offered users refunds of fees paid during earlier waves in exchange for giving up their Treasures.
NFT Categories and What You Can Trade OpenSea’s 80 million+ listed NFTs span every major category in the digital asset space:
Digital Art: From generative art collections like Art Blocks to 1-of-1 works from individual artists. OpenSea’s art infrastructure includes verified creator profiles, provenance tracking, and an integration with Art Basel (Zero 10 platform).
Profile Picture Collections (PFPs): CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, and hundreds of community-driven collections live primarily on Ethereum and trade at significant volume on OpenSea.
Gaming Assets: Items, characters, land, and equipment from blockchain games across Ronin, Polygon, and Immutable. Guild of Guardians, one of the top-performing gaming NFT collections by volume, trades on OpenSea.
Domain Names: ENS (Ethereum Name Service) domains like yourname.eth are tradable on OpenSea as NFTs, making it the primary secondary market for blockchain identity names.
Virtual Land: Parcels in metaverse platforms Decentraland and The Sandbox are listed and traded on OpenSea.
Music and Collectibles: Music NFTs, event tickets, sports collectibles, and photography collections are all supported through OpenSea’s flexible metadata standard.
Fungible Tokens (OS2): ETH, USDC, SOL, and hundreds of ERC-20 tokens are now tradable alongside NFTs in OS2, with DEX aggregation ensuring competitive swap rates.
How to Use OpenSea: Getting Started Step 1: Connect Your Wallet Visit opensea.io and click “Connect Wallet.” OpenSea supports MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Phantom (for Solana), Ledger, WalletConnect, and Abstract Wallet, among others. For a comparison of the best crypto wallets for NFT trading, see our 10 Best Crypto Wallets guide.
Step 2: Browse or Search Use the Explore tab to browse collections by category, chain, or trending volume. OS2’s new search tools allow filtering by price range, rarity, traits, and chain simultaneously, a significant improvement over legacy OpenSea’s search.
Step 3: Buy an NFT Click any listed NFT and select “Buy Now” for fixed-price listings or “Make Offer” for negotiation. For cross-chain purchases, select your payment token, and OS2 handles the bridging automatically. Confirm the transaction in your wallet.
Step 4: List an NFT Navigate to your profile, select the NFT you want to sell, and click “List.” Set a price, choose a duration, and optionally set a royalty percentage. Lazy minting is available for new creators: the NFT is only minted on-chain when someone purchases it, with the buyer paying the gas fee.
Step 5: Earn with Voyages Once connected, navigate to the Rewards tab to access Voyages, OpenSea’s quest system. Complete actions (cross-chain swaps, NFT purchases on new chains, profile sharing) to earn XP. XP tiers unlock Treasures. OpenSea said in March 2026 that the current rewards wave is the last and that saved Treasures will be considered in future token distributions.
The $SEA Token The $SEA token is OpenSea’s planned native token, announced February 13, 2025. Its launch, scheduled for March 30, 2026, was postponed in mid-March, with CEO Devin Finzer citing difficult market conditions, and OpenSea had not set a new date as of October 2026. The token is managed by the OpenSea Foundation, an independent entity based in the Cayman Islands. The design below is what OpenSea has announced so far.
What $SEA Is Designed to Do Governance: SEA holders will have voting rights on protocol upgrades, fee structures, and platform development direction.
Staking rewards: Holders can stake $SEA to earn a share of platform fee revenue.
Trading incentives: $SEA will be usable within the OS2 ecosystem for fee discounts and enhanced platform features.
Airdrop: 50% of the total SEA supply will go directly to community members, prioritizing long-term “OG” users and active OS2 participants. Historical OpenSea usage (pre-2025 activity) is a key eligibility factor. The initial claim will provide approximately 25% of the total supply instantly, with another 25% vesting over time.
Revenue buyback: OpenSea committed to using 50% of all platform fee revenue to buy back $SEA from the market, creating a direct link between platform activity and token demand.
Critically, OpenSea confirmed that US users are eligible for the $SEA airdrop, a deliberate contrast to some competitors who excluded US users due to regulatory concerns. The SEC’s closure of its OpenSea investigation in February 2025 removes the primary regulatory obstacle that had clouded the token’s launch timeline.
Security OpenSea’s security architecture is built on its non-custodial model: it never holds your assets. Everything is stored in your own wallet and transferred directly on-chain. This eliminates the exchange-style custody risk that has cost users billions in centralized platform collapses.
However, OpenSea has faced several security incidents over its history:
2022 Email Phishing Breach: A Customer.io employee misused OpenSea user email data to conduct a phishing campaign. No NFTs were stolen through the platform itself, but the breach exposed user contact information.
Smart Contract Exploits: Early OpenSea contracts were targeted by attackers who exploited stale listings: NFTs listed at old prices that could be purchased below market value before the owner could delist them. OpenSea’s Seaport protocol (deployed 2022) was designed to address these vulnerabilities.
Bug Bounty Program: OpenSea runs a HackerOne bug bounty program with rewards up to $100,000 for critical smart contract vulnerabilities. OpenSea has paid out $200,000 to ethical hackers through this program, reinforcing its commitment to proactive security.
Seaport Protocol: OpenSea’s open-source Seaport smart contract handles all marketplace transactions. It has been independently audited multiple times and is the most battle-tested NFT marketplace smart contract in existence. For broader context on crypto security risks, see our overview of top crypto hacks of 2025.
Best practices for users: Enable two-factor authentication on your email (used for OpenSea account recovery), never sign wallet transactions from unknown links, and regularly review active listings and approvals using a tool like Revoke.cash.
OpenSea vs Blur vs Magic Eden FeatureOpenSeaBlurMagic EdenMarketplace Fee1%0% (website closes November 12, 2026)2%Swap Fees0% OpenSea feeN/AN/ASupported Chains22Ethereum onlySolana only (since March 2026)NFTs Listed80 million+Ethereum-focusedSolana-focusedToken TradingYes (OS2)NoNoTarget UserAll usersPro tradersSolana/gaming communityRewards ProgramVoyages and Treasures ($SEA postponed)BLUR tokenEden PointsNative Token$SEA (postponed)BLURMEMobile AppYes (open to all since October 2026)NoWallet app closed May 2026Creator RoyaltiesEnforced or optional by collectionSet by protocol rulesOptional on most collections (buyer chooses)NFT Market Share (late 2025)~51%~23%~7.7% OpenSea vs Blur: Blur was purpose-built for professional Ethereum NFT traders, with zero fees, advanced portfolio analytics, and a bidding system optimized for high-frequency trading. But its monthly volume has collapsed by more than 99% from its 2023 peak, and its website will shut down on November 12, 2026, while its smart contracts stay live on-chain. OpenSea’s 1% fee is higher, but its multi-chain support, token trading, and ongoing development make it the more durable choice. See our report on Blur shutting down its marketplace and our Blur NFT Marketplace review.
OpenSea vs Magic Eden: Magic Eden is a leading Solana NFT marketplace with deep ties to gaming communities, and it has supported only Solana since March 9, 2026, when it closed its Ethereum, EVM and Bitcoin marketplaces. Its 2% fee is higher than OpenSea’s 1%, but its community focus makes it popular with Solana-native NFT projects. OpenSea’s broader chain support and token trading give it more total utility, while Magic Eden has stronger loyalty among Solana NFT collectors.
Pros and Cons Pros Largest NFT selection in Web3. 80 million+ NFTs across more than 20 chains, and no competitor comes close to this breadth of inventory. Whether you want blue-chip Ethereum art, Solana gaming assets, or Base ecosystem tokens, OpenSea has it.
Competitive fees. OpenSea’s 1% fee on NFT sales is well below its original 2.5%, and it charges no fee of its own on token swaps. Among marketplaces still actively traded on Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, that keeps it cost-competitive.
Multi-chain, multi-asset hub. Supporting more than 20 blockchains for both NFTs and tokens is a unique position in the NFT marketplace landscape. OpenSea is the only NFT-native platform also functioning as a multi-chain token DEX.
Regulatory clarity. The SEC investigation closure in February 2025, the Cayman-based Foundation structure for $SEA, and explicit US user eligibility for the airdrop represent unusually strong regulatory positioning for an NFT platform.
Non-custodial by design. Your assets never leave your wallet. This is the fundamental trust foundation that has kept OpenSea the default platform for high-value NFT trading despite competitive pressure.
Planned $SEA buybacks. OpenSea has said it will use half of platform fee revenue to buy back $SEA once the token launches, which would tie platform growth directly to token holders.
Cons Creator royalties are not always enforced. OpenSea’s shift away from universally enforced royalties, while competitive, has damaged its relationship with the creator community. Artists who depended on secondary sale income lost a reliable revenue stream.
Token trading dominates over NFTs. By October 2025, 90%+ of volume was from token trading rather than NFTs. This raises questions about whether OS2’s success is NFT marketplace recovery or effectively becoming a DEX that happens to list NFTs.
$SEA launch uncertainty. Despite a Q1 2026 target, OpenSea postponed the $SEA launch in March 2026 without a new date and said its current rewards wave would be the last. The delay frustrates Voyages participants who farmed XP in expectation of a launch, and until $SEA is live, the rewards program lacks its primary incentive.
No direct fiat on-ramp. OpenSea doesn’t accept credit card payments natively, so users must first acquire crypto (via MoonPay integration) and then trade. This creates friction for genuinely new users unfamiliar with wallet management.
A shrinking NFT market. NFT sales fell to about $167.2 million in September 2026, according to CryptoSlam, down from about $554.8 million a year earlier. Even the leading marketplace now operates in a far smaller NFT market than in 2021 and 2022.
Verdict: Is OpenSea Still the Best NFT Marketplace? For most users, yes.
The OS2 rebuild addressed every major criticism that had driven users to competitors: fees are competitive at 1%, chain support covers every major ecosystem, and the platform works for both casual collectors and sophisticated traders. The regulatory cloud from the SEC investigation has lifted. If the $SEA token launches, it could create a reward loop that keeps active users engaged and aligns their interests with the platform’s growth.
OpenSea is no longer just an NFT marketplace. It is an on-chain asset hub, the closest thing Web3 has to a single destination where you can trade NFTs, swap tokens, manage a portfolio across more than 20 chains, and earn platform rewards. That is a significantly more defensible position than “largest NFT marketplace” in a market where NFT-only volume remains below 2021 peaks.
Blur, long the sharper tool for professional Ethereum NFT traders, is closing its website in November 2026. For Solana-native communities, Magic Eden and Tensor have real advantages. But for the vast majority of NFT participants, including collectors, creators, newcomers, and cross-chain traders, OpenSea’s breadth, liquidity, and improving user experience make it the default starting point and the hardest platform to leave.
Frequently Asked Questions What is OpenSea?
OpenSea is one of the largest NFT marketplaces, founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah. Since its OS2 rebuild in 2025, it trades both NFTs and fungible tokens across 22 blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Base and Polygon. It is non-custodial, so NFTs stay in users’ wallets until a sale settles on-chain, and its mobile app opened to all users in October 2026.
How much does OpenSea charge?
OpenSea charges a 1% fee on NFT sales, included in the price buyers see, plus 10% on primary drop mints. Private listings carry a 0% fee, and OpenSea charges no fee of its own on token swaps. Creator earnings and blockchain gas come on top. The 1% rate has applied on all chains since September 15, 2025, after a 0.5% rate at the OS2 launch.
Is OpenSea safe?
OpenSea is non-custodial, so it never holds users’ NFTs or funds, and its Seaport smart contract has been audited multiple times. It runs a HackerOne bug bounty with rewards of up to $100,000. The main risks come from phishing sites, malicious signature requests and old token approvals, so users should verify links and review their approvals with tools such as Revoke.cash.
What is OS2?
OS2 is OpenSea’s rebuilt platform, announced on February 13, 2025, and out of beta on May 29, 2025. It added fungible token trading alongside NFTs, cross-chain purchases without manual bridging, Collector and Pro interface modes and support for far more blockchains. It launched with a 0.5% NFT fee, which OpenSea raised to 1% on all chains in September 2025.
When will the $SEA token launch?
No date is set. OpenSea announced $SEA in February 2025 and scheduled its launch for March 30, 2026, but postponed it in mid-March 2026, citing difficult market conditions, and had not announced a new date as of October 2026. OpenSea has said half of the token supply will go to the community and half of platform fee revenue will fund buybacks.
How does the Voyages rewards program work?
Voyages is OpenSea’s quest-based rewards program. Users complete tasks such as cross-chain swaps and NFT purchases to earn XP and unlock Treasures. In March 2026, OpenSea said the current rewards wave would be the last, offered fee refunds to users willing to give up their Treasures, and said saved Treasures will be considered in future token distributions.
How is OpenSea different from Blur?
OpenSea is a multi-chain platform for NFTs and tokens with a 1% NFT fee, aimed at both collectors and traders. Blur was an Ethereum-only marketplace for professional traders, with zero fees, collection bids and NFT lending through Blend. Blur’s monthly volume has fallen more than 99% from its 2023 peak, and its website closes on November 12, 2026.
Does OpenSea support Solana?
Yes. OpenSea first added Solana in April 2022 and fully integrated it into OS2 in April 2025, which brought a surge of new traders. On Solana, OpenSea supports token swaps and selected NFT collections. For Solana-native NFT trading, Magic Eden and Tensor remain the main specialist marketplaces, and each charges a 2% fee on trades.
More on this topic: NFT Marketplaces and What Is Panini Blockchain? How It Works in 2026.
See also: Magic Eden Review: The Solana NFT Marketplace at a Crossroads.
NFT marketplace Blur intends to retire the public-facing web interface at blur.io on November 12, 2026, while leaving its core on-chain marketplace protocol intact. The decision, disclosed in an official statement on X on October 12, reflects a prolonged collapse in trading activity across the non-fungible token sector.
The change applies solely to the website that most users rely on for browsing collections, placing bids, and managing positions.
Smart contracts governing the marketplace will continue running on Ethereum, and holders of the native BLUR token will retain governance authority over the protocol’s fee switch—the mechanism that determines whether and how fees are collected.
In parallel, Blur’s peer-to-peer NFT lending product, Blend, will cease matching new loans on the same date. Existing borrowers have until November 12 to repay outstanding obligations or accept default under the protocol’s rules.
After that deadline, the team plans to offer a limited frontend tool solely for withdrawing assets from Blend.
The timing aligns with a dramatic contraction in volume. Monthly trading on Blur reached a peak of roughly $1.43 billion in March 2023.
Three years later, the same metric had fallen below $7 million, a decline exceeding 99 percent according to data compiled by Token Terminal.
Broader NFT market metrics have followed a similar trajectory: total sales volume across the sector remains far below the multi-billion-dollar peaks recorded in early 2022.
Market reaction was immediate.
The BLUR token declined more than 20 percent in the hours after the announcement, with some reports showing losses approaching 30 percent over a 24-hour window as the price settled near $0.013–$0.015 and market capitalization fell into the low tens of millions.
The move follows recent wind-down announcements for Blast, an Ethereum layer-2 network developed by the same core team behind Blur and founded by Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre, as well as the Pudgy Penguins-backed Abstract network.
Blur rose to prominence in 2023 by offering advanced trading tools, optional creator royalties, and token incentives that attracted high-volume traders and briefly made it the leading Ethereum NFT marketplace by volume.
1/ The https://t.co/zPQ1jqR7pT frontend will be deprecated on November 12, 2026.
This deprecation only applies to the frontend.
The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch.
— Blur (@blur_io) October 12, 2026
Those same features drew lasting criticism from creators and collectors who argued that zero or optional royalties eroded long-term project sustainability while reward farming inflated short-term activity.
Some collectors responded to the frontend announcement with open satisfaction, viewing the closure as the end of a model they believed distorted the market.
For most users the practical effect will be limited access.
Direct interaction with the on-chain contracts remains technically possible, yet the polished interface that supported bulk bidding, portfolio tools, and everyday trading will disappear.
Users who previously granted wallet approvals to Blur-related contracts are advised to review those permissions, as on-chain authorizations persist independently of the website.
The team has cautioned against impersonators and confirmed that @blur_io
is its sole official account.
The episode underscores how heavily many NFT platforms depended on incentive programs and peak-cycle liquidity.
With volume reduced to a fraction of former levels, operating a full consumer frontend has become difficult to justify for several projects.
Blur’s decision preserves the underlying protocol and token governance while stepping away from day-to-day product operations—an arrangement that leaves residual on-chain functionality but removes the primary entry point for retail and professional users.
The Blur frontend is scheduled for deprecation in November.
Blur will shut down its frontend on November 12, 2026. But the NFT marketplace won’t disappear. Its protocol will keep running on-chain, and the BLUR token will still control the fee switch.
The same date also marks a change for Blend, Blur’s lending platform. It will stop matching new loans, giving borrowers until then to repay or risk default. Users who still have assets on Blend will get a withdrawal tool after the deadline, according to the announcement.
What Happened to Blur?
Blur raised $11 million in seed funding in March 2022 and emerged as a major rival to OpenSea, targeting professional NFT traders. After launching in October, it attracted users with zero marketplace fees, bulk trading tools, and token rewards. Its BLUR token launch in February 2023 brought a wave of activity, while Blend later expanded Blur into NFT-backed lending. By December 2023, it commanded 80% of the NFT market’s share.
Blur still maintained its lead in Q1 2024 after recording $1.5 billion in volume. However, falling NFT activity and declining lending demand gradually weakened its position. By 2025, OpenSea was recovering market share, while Blend went in the opposite direction. In April 2026, KuCoin removed BLUR cross-margin trading. Two months later, Binance placed the token under its “Monitoring Tag.”
Shutdowns in 2026
2026 has seen several crypto and Web3 platforms announce shutdowns or wind-downs. NFT platform Nifty Gateway and social collecting app Rodeo announced plans to wind down, while Foundation announced its closure in April after a sale fell through. Meanwhile, Blur’s news comes less than a fortnight after Blast announced it would close on October 2.
Interestingly, both projects were created by Blur founder Tieshun Roquerre, better known as Pacman, and developed by the same team. Blast, an Ethereum scaling network, also revealed it was ceasing operations just over two years after launch. It said that “the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense.” Activity on the network had faded, which left it unable to cover its running costs.
Blur, long the leading NFT marketplace on Ethereum, announced on Monday the closure of its site for November 12. Monthly volumes dropped from about $1.43 billion at the peak in March 2023 to less than $7 million today, without the platform ever charging fees.
In brief
Blur will close its site blur.io on November 12, 2026. The Blend lending service will also stop granting new loans on that date.
Its monthly volumes have dropped by over 99% since their peak in March 2023, while protocol revenues remained zero.
The BLUR token lost more than 20% after the announcement, ten days after the closure announcement of the Blast network, developed by the same team.
Blur loses ground after its meteoric rise
Launched in 2022, Blur quickly attracted NFT traders thanks to three features: fast transactions, no fees, and token rewards. This strategy enabled it to surpass OpenSea and capture nearly 70% of NFT trades on Ethereum in March 2023, with $1.43 billion monthly volume.
Since then, the trend has reversed. The NFT market has been slowing for several months, and Blur has been hit hard by this slowdown. In March 2026, its monthly volumes fell below $7 million, a drop of over 99.5% compared to 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. However, its site still shows zero fees and $7.4 billion in cumulative volume.
Zero commission, but also zero revenue
Behind these billions of dollars traded, Blur’s economic model shows its limits. The platform never charged commissions and, according to Token Terminal data, its protocol generated no revenue over the past three years.
In the fall of 2025, OpenSea doubled its NFT fees to fund its development. Blur, meanwhile, kept its zero-fee model to attract traders. However, without its own revenues, its activity largely depended on rewards distributed to users and hopes for a market recovery.
These campaigns 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. Its assets fell from over $2 billion to about $32 million. Users must withdraw their funds by October 26.
The two projects are linked to Tieshun Roquerre, known by the pseudonym Pacman. For Blur, the closure concerns the site only, not the contracts on Ethereum, which remain active. BLUR holders also retain control of the fee mechanism.
Meanwhile, Blend users must repay their loans or accept default before November 12. Blur detailed the terms of this deadline on X and promises a withdrawal tool.
After the announcement, the BLUR token dropped more than 20%, around $0.015. Unlike Blast, which cited costs exceeding revenues, Blur did not explain the reasons for its withdrawal.
In September, global NFT sales 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 of NFTs.
Maximize your Cointribune experience with our "Read to Earn" program! For every article you read, earn points and access exclusive rewards. Sign up now and start earning benefits.
Join the program
A
A
Lien copié
Fenelon L.
Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
Nonfungible token marketplace Blur, which once overtook OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume, says it is shutting down its website next month — and some NFT collectors couldn’t be happier.
Blur made the announcement on X on Monday, its first post on the platform in more than a year. It said the frontend will shut down on Nov. 12, while its onchain marketplace will remain operational.
Blend, a peer-to-peer perpetual NFT lending protocol, will also stop matching new loans. Blur said borrowers have until Nov. 12 to repay outstanding loans or allow them to default. It also promised a withdrawal interface after the shutdown.
“Good riddance. You destroyed NFTs. Please shut down and never come back,” said NFT collector Cryptobscure in a reply to the post on X.
“You may not have been able to complete your mission to destroy NFTs. But you acted with extreme determination and tried everything. Congratulations to us for surviving you,” NFT collector starfruit said in another post.
The post renewed criticism of the strategy that helped Blur reach the top of the NFT charts in 2023: optional creator royalties and token rewards that encouraged traders to bid and flip NFTs. Its rise accelerated a shift toward lower creator royalties, with rival OpenSea later moving to optional creator fees for new collections.
Blur launched on Oct. 19, 2022, allowing sellers to customize royalty payments while offering larger prospective token rewards to those who paid higher creator royalties.
But it entered a market where royalty protections were already weakening: competing marketplace Magic Eden had moved to optional royalties the previous week.
By July of the following year, blockchain analytics platform Nansen reported that effective creator royalty fees fell to 0.6% in July 2023 from an average of 2.5% in 2022, attributing much of that gap to Blur’s growth, its minimum royalty policy and OpenSea lowering its own royalty requirements to compete.
NFT sales slump from boom-era highsBlur didn’t disclose why it made the decision to shutter its frontend and wind down new lending activity on Blend.
However, the decision comes as NFT trading remains far below its boom-era levels. Data from CryptoSlam shows total NFT sales in September were $167 million over 2.9 million total transactions. The peak was in January 2022, when there was $6 billion in sales over 13.7 million transactions.
Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway and social collecting platform Rodeo announced plans to wind down in January, while Foundation announced its closure in April after a sale intended to keep it operating fell through. Binance also ended NFT support on its exchange, shifting asset management to Binance Wallet.
Cointelegraph reached out to Blur founder Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre for comment.
Magazine: Ledger attack spreads to EU, AI finds ’18 trillion XRP’ bug: Hodler’s Digest
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Nonfungible token marketplace Blur, which once overtook OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume, says it is shutting down its website next month — and some NFT collectors couldn’t be happier.
Blur made the announcement on X on Monday, its first post on the platform in more than a year. It said the frontend will shut down on Nov. 12, while its onchain marketplace will remain operational.
Blend, a peer-to-peer perpetual NFT lending protocol, will also stop matching new loans. Blur said borrowers have until Nov. 12 to repay outstanding loans or allow them to default. It also promised a withdrawal interface after the shutdown.
“Good riddance. You destroyed NFTs. Please shut down and never come back,” said NFT collector Cryptobscure in a reply to the post on X.
“You may not have been able to complete your mission to destroy NFTs. But you acted with extreme determination and tried everything. Congratulations to us for surviving you,” NFT collector starfruit said in another post.
The post renewed criticism of the strategy that helped Blur reach the top of the NFT charts in 2023: optional creator royalties and token rewards that encouraged traders to bid and flip NFTs. Its rise accelerated a shift toward lower creator royalties, with rival OpenSea later moving to optional creator fees for new collections.
Blur launched on Oct. 19, 2022, allowing sellers to customize royalty payments while offering larger prospective token rewards to those who paid higher creator royalties.
But it entered a market where royalty protections were already weakening: competing marketplace Magic Eden had moved to optional royalties the previous week.
By July of the following year, blockchain analytics platform Nansen reported that effective creator royalty fees fell to 0.6% in July 2023 from an average of 2.5% in 2022, attributing much of that gap to Blur’s growth, its minimum royalty policy and OpenSea lowering its own royalty requirements to compete.
NFT sales slump from boom-era highsBlur didn’t disclose why it made the decision to shutter its frontend and wind down new lending activity on Blend.
However, the decision comes as NFT trading remains far below its boom-era levels. Data from CryptoSlam shows total NFT sales in September were $167 million over 2.9 million total transactions. The peak was in January 2022, when there was $6 billion in sales over 13.7 million transactions.
Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway and social collecting platform Rodeo announced plans to wind down in January, while Foundation announced its closure in April after a sale intended to keep it operating fell through. Binance also ended NFT support on its exchange, shifting asset management to Binance Wallet.
Cointelegraph reached out to Blur founder Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre for comment.
Magazine: Ledger attack spreads to EU, AI finds ’18 trillion XRP’ bug: Hodler’s Digest
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Blur’s onchain marketplace will remain operational after its website closes. Blend borrowers must address outstanding loans before the November 12 deadline or face default. Monthly marketplace trading volume has fallen more than 99% from its 2023 peak. NFT marketplace Blur will discontinue its website on November 12, 2026, and stop matching new loans through its Blend lending protocol, ending the platform’s main trading and lending services after a prolonged collapse in NFT activity.
The decision, announced through Blur’s official X account on October 12, sent its BLUR governance token sharply lower. At the time of writing the token is trading near $0.01280, down 31.82% over the preceding 24 hours.
Blur confirmed that its marketplace smart contracts will remain operational on Ethereum and that BLUR will retain control of the protocol’s fee switch.
The distinction leaves the underlying marketplace intact but removes the interface through which most users access it. Blend borrowers face a more immediate problem: resolving outstanding debt before the lending service stops arranging new loans.
Blend Borrowers Face a Repayment or Default Decision Blend launched in May 2023 as a peer-to-peer lending protocol developed by Blur contributors in collaboration with Paradigm researchers.
It allows NFT owners to borrow against their collections without selling the underlying assets.
Unlike conventional fixed-term lending, Blend was designed around perpetual loans that can continue as long as lenders remain willing to finance them.
According to the original technical paper published by Paradigm, borrowers can repay at any time, while lenders can initiate refinancing auctions to exit positions. If an auction fails to attract another lender, the borrower can be liquidated and lose the pledged NFT.
Blur’s wind-down introduces a specific deadline into that structure.
The company has told borrowers to repay their loans by November 12 or allow them to default. It has also promised a separate withdrawal interface after the shutdown, although no release date has been announced.
The announcement does not explain how every outstanding loan will be processed during the transition or whether additional guidance will be issued before the deadline.
Borrowers should therefore distinguish between two separate matters: repaying debt to recover pledged collateral and withdrawing assets that are no longer subject to an outstanding obligation.
The promised withdrawal tool does not establish that unpaid loans will be forgiven or that defaulted collateral can subsequently be reclaimed.
What BLUR Holders and Blend Users Should Check The next month will be particularly important for users with open lending positions or assets held through Blur-related contracts.
The immediate priorities are:
Review outstanding loans: Check the borrowed amount, accrued interest, collateral and any active refinancing or liquidation process. Assess repayment requirements: Borrowers seeking to retain their NFTs should determine what they must repay before the deadline. Verify contract information: Use trusted official contract references and an Ethereum explorer such as Etherscan to inspect relevant transactions and positions. Wait for verified withdrawal instructions: Blur has promised a withdrawal interface but has not published its availability date. Users should avoid unofficial links or requests for unexpected wallet permissions. These steps are particularly relevant because shutdown announcements can attract fraudulent websites impersonating official withdrawal services.
For BLUR token holders, the situation is different. Blur has not announced the termination of its governance token or the removal of its fee-switch authority.
However, the continued existence of governance rights does not guarantee future protocol revenue or demand for the token.
BLUR Price Collapse Reflects a Sharp Change in Sentiment The selloff followed several weeks of weakening price action.
The BLUR/USD daily chart from Coinbase shows the token trading above $0.021 in early October before retreating toward $0.019 ahead of the announcement.
BLUR faces sharp selling pressure. Selling then accelerated, pushing the price toward $0.0127 on October 13.
The TradingView chart showed BLUR at $0.012675, with the daily candle down 8.34%. That daily percentage differs from the larger rolling 24-hour decline because the two measures use different starting points.
The decline suggests traders were reassessing the token’s prospects as Blur withdrew its primary services.
The announcement does not remove BLUR’s governance role, but a functioning fee switch has limited commercial significance without sufficient activity generating fees.
The protocol’s future revenue potential will depend on whether marketplace transactions continue through alternative interfaces and whether any economic activity remains after Blend stops arranging new loans.
Blur’s Trading Volume Has Fallen More Than 99% Blur was once one of the most aggressive competitors in the NFT marketplace industry.
Launched in October 2022, it attracted professional traders with zero marketplace trading fees, advanced bidding tools and token incentives.
Its rise helped it overtake OpenSea in Ethereum NFT trading volume during parts of 2023.
The platform processed approximately $1.43 billion in trading volume in March of that year, according to figures reported by CoinDesk.
By March 2026, monthly volume had fallen below $7 million.
That represents a decline exceeding 99.5% between the two reported periods.
The figures do not establish Blur’s trading volume immediately before the closure announcement, but they demonstrate how substantially activity had contracted from its peak.
The marketplace’s original incentive model also faced criticism for encouraging speculative trading and weakening NFT creator royalties.
Blur allowed sellers to customize royalty payments, while its rewards programs encouraged liquidity provision and frequent transactions.
Its success accelerated competition over marketplace fees and creator compensation, although changes in NFT royalties were already underway before Blur became a dominant trading venue.
The company has not attributed its shutdown decision to that controversy.
Another Retreat in the NFT Infrastructure Market Blur’s announcement follows the planned shutdown of Blast, an Ethereum layer-2 network associated with Blur founder Tieshun Roquerre, known as Pacman.
Blast announced its closure earlier in October, adding to a series of NFT and blockchain businesses that have reduced or discontinued services amid weaker market activity.
Blur’s departure from frontend operations is particularly notable because its trading model once influenced the economics of the broader NFT marketplace industry.
Its fee-free approach and token incentives helped attract volume but did not necessarily establish a durable revenue stream.
CoinDesk, citing Token Terminal data, reported that Blur’s marketplace protocol generated no fee revenue over the preceding three years.
That measure does not capture every possible revenue source associated with the wider Blur ecosystem, including lending-related activities.
The distinction is important when evaluating the sustainability of the business rather than treating declining transaction volume as a complete financial statement.
What Happens After November 12? Blur has confirmed the continuation of its marketplace smart contracts but has not provided a long-term development roadmap.
Three issues remain unresolved: whether third-party interfaces will support marketplace trading, when Blend’s withdrawal tool will become available, and how much activity will remain after new lending stops.
For borrowers, the immediate concern is preserving collateral and understanding their repayment obligations.
For BLUR holders, the larger question is whether governance over an operational but potentially less-used protocol retains meaningful economic value.
Blur’s withdrawal from frontend operations does not eliminate its onchain infrastructure. It does, however, end the operating model that helped make the marketplace a major force in Ethereum NFT trading.
Alexander Zdravkov is a crypto journalist and market analyst specializing in digital assets, blockchain technology, and the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency market. He entered the industry more than four years ago, drawn to the speed of innovation in crypto and the potential of blockchain-based financial systems to reshape traditional markets. His work focuses on understanding the forces behind crypto market movements, from Bitcoin and altcoin cycles to institutional adoption, regulation, exchange-traded products, stablecoins, DeFi, and emerging blockchain ecosystems. Rather than simply following price action, Alexander looks at liquidity, investor positioning, market structure, and macroeconomic conditions to identify developing trends and explain what they could mean for digital assets. With a degree in International Relations, he brings a broader perspective to cryptocurrency coverage by connecting developments in the sector with monetary policy, geopolitics, regulation, and global capital flows. This allows him to examine crypto not as an isolated market, but as an increasingly interconnected part of the global financial system. Over the course of more than five years in financial journalism, Alexander has written over 5,000 articles covering cryptocurrencies, blockchain, traditional markets, and the global economy. His reporting spans Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoins, DeFi protocols, institutional crypto adoption, regulation, market infrastructure, security incidents, and major developments shaping the wider digital asset industry. His approach is centered on giving readers context behind the numbers and headlines, explaining not only what is happening in crypto markets, but why it matters and what could come next.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
According to official announcements, Upbit has added Blur (BLUR) to its trading warning list. Deposit and withdrawal services for the token are currently suspended.
NFT pazaryeri Blur, internet sitesinin ön yüzünü 12 Kasım’da kapatacağını açıklarken NFT topluluğunda tartışmalar yeniden alevlendi. Bir dönem işlem hacmi bakımından OpenSea’yi geride bırakan platform, özellikle içerik üreticilerine ödenen telif ücretleri ve token ödülleriyle öne çıkmıştı. Ancak bu strateji, NFT alım satımını teşvik ederken sanatçıların gelirlerini düşürdüğü gerekçesiyle uzun süredir eleştiriliyor.
Blur, pazartesi günü X hesabından yaptığı açıklamada internet sitesinin kullanıcı arayüzünü kapatacağını, buna karşılık blok zinciri üzerindeki pazaryerinin çalışmaya devam edeceğini duyurdu. Platformun bir yıldan uzun süre sonra yaptığı ilk paylaşım, bazı koleksiyoncular tarafından memnuniyetle karşılandı. NFT koleksiyoncusu Cryptobscure, Blur’un NFT sektörüne zarar verdiğini savunarak platformun tamamen ortadan kalkmasını istediğini belirtti. Starfruit adlı bir başka koleksiyoncu da Blur’un sektörü bitirme girişiminde başarısız olduğunu, ancak bu hedefe ulaşmak için büyük çaba gösterdiğini söyledi.
Blur Neden NFT Telif Ücretleri Üzerinden Eleştiriliyor?
Blur, 19 Ekim 2022’de faaliyete başladı ve satıcılara telif ödemelerini belirleme konusunda esneklik sundu. Platform ayrıca içerik üreticilerine daha yüksek telif ücreti ödeyen kullanıcılara daha fazla token ödülü kazanma fırsatı verdi. Bu model, NFT alıp kısa sürede satarak kazanç elde etmeyi hedefleyen yatırımcıların ilgisini çekti ve Blur’un 2023’te işlem hacmi bakımından sektörün zirvesine çıkmasına yardımcı oldu.
Ancak platformun büyümesi, NFT üreticilerinin gelirlerini koruyan telif mekanizmalarının zayıfladığı bir döneme denk geldi. Blur’un yükselişinden bir hafta önce rakip Magic Eden da isteğe bağlı telif uygulamasına geçmişti. Daha sonra OpenSea, yeni koleksiyonlar için zincir üstü telif zorunluluğunu uygulayan aracını devre dışı bırakarak rekabete uyum sağladı.
Blok zinciri analiz platformu Nansen’in Temmuz 2023’te yayımladığı verilere göre, NFT üreticilerinin fiilen elde ettiği telif oranı Temmuz 2023’te yüzde 0,6’ya kadar düştü. Bu oran, 2022’deki ortalama yüzde 2,5 seviyesinin oldukça altındaydı. Nansen, aradaki farkta Blur’un büyümesinin, platformun asgari telif politikalarının ve OpenSea’nin rekabet nedeniyle telif gerekliliklerini gevşetmesinin etkili olduğunu belirtti.
Blur Kapanışı NFT Piyasasındaki Düşüşle Mi İlgili?
Blur, internet sitesini kapatma ve Blend üzerinden yeni kredi işlemlerini durdurma kararının nedenini açıklamadı. Bununla birlikte karar, NFT piyasasının önceki yıllardaki yüksek işlem hacimlerinden uzaklaştığı bir dönemde geldi.
CryptoSlam verilerine göre, eylül ayında NFT satışları 2,9 milyon işlemde toplam 167 milyon dolar olarak gerçekleşti. Piyasanın en güçlü dönemlerinden Ocak 2022’de ise 13,7 milyon işlem üzerinden 6 milyar dolarlık satış yapılmıştı. Bu karşılaştırma, satış hacminin zirve dönemine kıyasla ne kadar gerilediğini ortaya koyuyor.
NFT Sektöründe Başka Hangi Platformlar Kapanıyor?
Blur’un kararı, NFT sektöründeki diğer kapanma ve hizmet sonlandırma haberlerinin ardından geldi. Gemini bünyesindeki Nifty Gateway ile sosyal koleksiyon platformu Rodeo, ocak ayında faaliyetlerini sonlandırma planlarını duyurdu. Foundation ise faaliyetlerini sürdürmesini sağlayacak satış anlaşmasının sonuçsuz kalmasının ardından nisan ayında kapanacağını açıkladı.
Binance de borsasındaki NFT desteğini sonlandırarak kullanıcıların varlık yönetimini Binance Wallet’a taşıdı. Bu gelişmeler, NFT platformlarının değişen piyasa koşullarına uyum sağlamakta zorlandığını gösteriyor.
Blend Kredileri İçin Kullanıcıları Ne Bekliyor?
Blur’un eşler arası, süresiz NFT kredileri sunan protokolü Blend de yeni kredi eşleştirme işlemlerini durduracak. Mevcut borçluların 12 Kasım’a kadar borçlarını geri ödemesi veya temerrüt durumunu kabul etmesi gerekiyor. Blur, kapanış sonrasında kullanıcıların varlıklarını çekebilmesi için ayrıca bir arayüz sunacağını belirtti.
Platformun kurucusu Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre’den konuyla ilgili yorum almak üzere girişimde bulunuldu. Blur’un internet sitesi kapanacak olsa da zincir üstü pazaryerinin açık kalması, hizmetlerin tamamen sona ermeyeceği anlamına geliyor. NFT kullanıcıları, 12 Kasım tarihine kadar kredi yükümlülüklerini ve varlıklarına erişim seçeneklerini kontrol ederek süreci yakından takip etmeli.
Bu içerik kesinlikle yatırım tavsiyesi niteliği taşımamaktadır. Piyasalar yüksek risk içermektedir ve yatırım kararlarınızı almadan önce kendi araştırmanızı yapmanız önemlidir.
Son Dakika kripto para haberleri için hemen tıkla.
Konu ile ilgili yorumlarınızı bize yazabilirsiniz. Ayrıca, bu tarz bilgilendirici içeriklerin devamının gelmesini isterseniz, bizleri Telegram, Youtube ve Twitter kanallarımızdan takip edebilirsiniz.
In brief Blur will deprecate the frontend of its NFT marketplace at blur.io on November 12, though the marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain. Its NFT lending platform Blend will stop matching new loans the same day, and borrowers must repay or let their loans default before then. Statista projects global NFT market revenue of $318.3 million in 2026, well below its 2021 and 2022 peaks. Ethereum NFT marketplace Blur will shut down its website on November 12, the company said.
The deprecation applies only to the blur.io frontend. The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and holders of the BLUR token will continue to control its fee switch, the team said.
1/ The https://t.co/zPQ1jqR7pT frontend will be deprecated on November 12, 2026.
This deprecation only applies to the frontend.
The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch.
— Blur (@blur_io) October 12, 2026
Blend, Blur's peer-to-peer NFT lending platform, will stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default, and Blur said it will provide a tool afterward to help users withdraw their assets from Blend.
Blur and the NFT marketBlur launched in 2022 with a token airdrop to traders, and quickly overtook OpenSea in trading volume. Critics later questioned whether its incentives helped crash NFT prices.
The NFT market has since shrunk sharply. Global NFT market revenue is projected at $318.3 million in 2026, essentially flat on last year, according to Statista, well below its peaks in 2021 and 2022.
Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.Monthly NFT sales volume fell to $167.2 million in September, down from $554.8 million a year earlier and $1.78 billion in December 2023, according to data from CryptoSlam. That is a fraction of the multibillion-dollar months recorded at the market's peak in 2021 and 2022.
Cheaper NFTs have driven up sales counts even as trading volume has plummeted, according to DappRadar.
The move comes after Blast, the Ethereum layer-2 network launched in November 2023 by the team behind Blur, said earlier this month that it is shutting down because it costs more to run than it earns. Blast drew more than $2.3 billion in deposits by its February 2024 mainnet launch, and has given users until October 26 to withdraw through its interface.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
In brief
Blur will deprecate the frontend of its NFT marketplace at blur.io on November 12, though the marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain.
Its NFT lending platform Blend will stop matching new loans the same day, and borrowers must repay or let their loans default before then.
Statista projects global NFT market revenue of $318.3 million in 2026, well below its 2021 and 2022 peaks.
Ethereum NFT marketplace Blur will shut down its website on November 12, the company said.
The deprecation applies only to the blur.io frontend. The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and holders of the BLUR token will continue to control its fee switch, the team said.
1/ The https://t.co/zPQ1jqR7pT frontend will be deprecated on November 12, 2026.
This deprecation only applies to the frontend.
The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch.
— Blur (@blur_io) October 12, 2026
Blend, Blur's peer-to-peer NFT lending platform, will stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default, and Blur said it will provide a tool afterward to help users withdraw their assets from Blend.
Blur and the NFT marketBlur launched in 2022 with a token airdrop to traders, and quickly overtook OpenSea in trading volume. Critics later questioned whether its incentives helped crash NFT prices.
The NFT market has since shrunk sharply. Global NFT market revenue is projected at $318.3 million in 2026, essentially flat on last year, according to Statista, well below its peaks in 2021 and 2022.
Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.Monthly NFT sales volume fell to $167.2 million in September, down from $554.8 million a year earlier and $1.78 billion in December 2023, according to data from CryptoSlam. That is a fraction of the multibillion-dollar months recorded at the market's peak in 2021 and 2022.
Cheaper NFTs have driven up sales counts even as trading volume has plummeted, according to DappRadar.
The move comes after Blast, the Ethereum layer-2 network launched in November 2023 by the team behind Blur, said earlier this month that it is shutting down because it costs more to run than it earns. Blast drew more than $2.3 billion in deposits by its February 2024 mainnet launch, and has given users until October 26 to withdraw through its interface.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
Ahmed Barakat is a journalist and copywriter based in Georgia with a growing focus on blockchain technology, DeFi, AI, privacy, digital assets, and fintech innovation.
Has Also Written
Fact Checked by
CryptoNews Editorial Team
Author
CryptoNews Editorial Team
Part of the Team Since
Sep 2018
About Author
The CryptoNews editorial team is composed of seasoned writers specializing in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Their expertise ensures comprehensive, accurate, and insightful content for...
Has Also Written
Last updated:
Blur announced that its website will close on November 12, 2026, while its Ethereum NFT marketplace contracts remain operational. The protocol survives on-chain, but the Blur NFT marketplace is losing its main interface after monthly NFT trading volume dropped more than 99.5% from its 2023 peak.
The same date applies to Blend, Blur NFT lending service: it will stop matching new loans, and borrowers must repay outstanding loans by the deadline, or allow them to default. Blur plans to provide a separate tool afterward for withdrawing assets from Blend, but the announcement did not specify when that tool will be available.
1/ The https://t.co/zPQ1jqR7pT frontend will be deprecated on November 12, 2026.
This deprecation only applies to the frontend.
The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch.
— Blur (@blur_io) October 12, 2026
The decision follows Blast’s October 2 shutdown announcement. Blast, an Ethereum scaling network created by Tieshun Roquerre, also known as Pacman, was developed by the team behind Blur.
But unlike Blast, Blur has not publicly attributed its closure to operating losses; the Blast network shutdown offers a separate example of an Ethereum ecosystem project winding down while users still face asset-access deadlines.
Earn $50 and Enter $300K Prize Draw on EdgeX
Live Contracts Face a Test of Practical UtilityBlur’s contraction is stark against its peak. The marketplace captured more than 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023, when monthly activity reached about $1.43 billion; by March 2026, volume had fallen below $7 million.
The marketplace launched in 2022 with a focus on professional traders, using faster transactions, low fees, and token rewards to compete with OpenSea. Its incentive programs later drew criticism for encouraging speculative trading and putting pressure on creator royalties.
There is also a gap between trading activity and protocol income. The primary report cites Token Terminal data showing no transaction-fee revenue over the past three years, despite billions of dollars in trades, because Blur charged no marketplace fees.
BLUR holders will retain control of the protocol’s fee switch, which could allow them to vote on whether trading fees begin. Continued control is not the same as an approved fee change.
The practical question is whether outside builders will create interfaces that make the contracts usable and help traders find liquidity. On-chain availability preserves a route to the protocol; it does not guarantee the discovery tools, bidding flow, or user activity that a first-party frontend can support.
Trade Crypto on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop
BLUR Price Sharp Selloff After The NFT Marketplace AnnouncementBLUR is trading around $0.015 after a decline of more than 20% following the announcement. CoinGecko snapshot also showed $42.6 million in 24-hour trading volume and a market cap of about $38.75 million.
MeasureReported figureContextBLUR priceAbout $0.015More than 20% lower after the announcement, per the primary reportBlur Monthly NFT trading volumeAbout $1.43 billion to below $7 millionMarch 2023 peak to March 2026Blend deadlineNovember 12, 2026New loan matching stops; borrowers face repayment or defaultBefore November 12, Blend borrowers must decide whether to repay or accept default, with a withdrawal tool planned for afterward. For the marketplace, the next test is whether another interface can convert live Ethereum contracts into sustained activity; if not, the volume decline leaves little evidence that contract survival alone will restore BLUR’s practical utility.
Blur set Nov. 12 as the date it retires the blur.io interface, saying the marketplace protocol stays live onchain and the BLUR token keeps control of its fee switch.
Blur will retire its blur.io website on Nov. 12
Posted October 13, 2026 at 6:19 am ET.
NFT marketplace Blur will stop running its blur.io website on Nov. 12, 2026, the team said on X on Monday, Oct. 12.
The change is limited to the web interface, according to the post. “The Blur marketplace protocol will remain operational on-chain, and $BLUR will continue to control its fee switch,” Blur wrote in the post.
A fee switch is a governance setting that decides whether a protocol collects fees on the activity that runs through it. Blur’s three-post thread did not say whether that setting would change, and it gave no reason for retiring the site.
The BLUR token traded near $0.0123 at 8:10 a.m. UTC on Tuesday, down about 34% over the previous 24 hours, a window that began before Blur’s post, according to CoinGecko data. Its market value stood at roughly $35.8 million.
Get Unchained’s crypto news in your inbox with the free Unchained Daily newsletter.
Blend Loans Wind Down on the Same Date
The same deadline applies to Blend, Blur’s peer-to-peer NFT lending product. “Blend will stop matching new loans on November 12, 2026,” Blur wrote in the second post of its thread. “Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default.”
Once the deadline passes, Blur said, it will offer a frontend tool that lets users take their assets out of Blend. The post did not say when that tool would be available. In the third and final post of the thread, Blur warned users about impersonators and fraudulent announcements, adding, “The only official Blur account is @blur_io.”
The Blast Wind-Down
The Blur announcement arrived 10 days after Blast, the Ethereum layer-2 network that Blur founder Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre created, said it was shutting down. Blast said on Oct. 2 that the ongoing costs of maintaining the chain “exceed the revenue generated by the L2.”
Blast gave users until Oct. 26 to withdraw through its normal interface. After that date, Blast said, funds can still be withdrawn, but only by calling its Ethereum-side bridge contracts directly.
For Blur, the same split now applies on a different timeline: the company’s own website goes away on Nov. 12, while, per its post, the marketplace contracts and the BLUR token’s control of the fee switch remain in place onchain.
Related Listen: The Chopping Block: Live at TOKEN2049 with Balaji Srinivasan and Arthur Hayes on Kazakhstan, Crypto Bunker Mode, and the L2 Shutdowns
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
In an unexpected turn of events, Blur, known as the largest marketplace for trading Ethereum NFTs for so long, has announced plans to wind down certain operations.
Effective on the 12th of November, 2026, Blur will go through the deprecation of its website frontend.
What will happen after November 2026? So post the aforementioned date, the existing Blur website interface will not remain available for its usual marketplace functions. However, this does not mean that the underlying Blur marketplace protocol will shut down completely.
In fact, the protocol will continue operating on-chain, wherein its smart contracts and blockchain-based functionality will remain in place. Additionally, users may still be able to interact with the protocol through alternative interfaces, with the latter yet to be decided.
Loan matching also comes to an end Moreover, Blur also announced that Blend (Blur’s NFT lending protocol) will stop matching new loans on the 12th of November, 2026. The team added,
Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default. After this date, we will provide a frontend tool to help users withdraw their assets from Blend.
Therefore, existing borrowers must repay their loans before the deadline or face the possibility of default, according to the announcement.
The $BLUR token echoes the shutdown tremor Yet despite all these major changes, Blur has clarified that its native token, $BLUR, will continue to control the protocol’s fee switch. This coincided with BLUR trading at $0.0134 after a drop of 28.8% in the past 24 hours and a year-to-date drop of 52%.
Well, Blur is not the only one sailing this sea. Abstract, Ethereum‘s [ETH] Layer-2 network, has also announced plans to shut down by December 2026.
Still, things are not that messy yet, as, according to a recent report by AMBCrypto, only nine crypto exchanges and trading platforms announced or completed shutdowns this year, the lowest annual count in at least eight years.
Final Summary Besides the website frontend shutdown, the underlying Blur marketplace protocol will continue to run as is. BLUR’s price was trading at $0.0134 after a drop of 28.8% in the past 24 hours.
Blur, once the largest marketplace for trading Ethereum NFTs, will shut down its blur.io website on November 12, 2026, after monthly trading volume collapsed more than 99% from its March 2023 peak. The team framed the change in its October 12 announcement as a frontend deprecation rather than a full shutdown: the on-chain marketplace protocol will remain operational, and BLUR tokenholders will keep control of the fee switch that could turn trading fees on.
The same date ends new loan matching on Blend, Blur’s NFT lending arm. Borrowers have until November 12 to repay their loans or let them default, and the team said it will provide a separate frontend tool afterward for withdrawing assets still held in Blend.
What Is Shutting Down, and What Stays Live
The shutdown covers only the blur.io frontend. Blur’s smart contracts keep running on Ethereum, so the marketplace’s underlying trading system is not being deleted. The fee switch stays under BLUR tokenholder control, meaning holders can still vote on whether the marketplace should begin charging trading fees. On the same November 12 date, Blend stops matching new loans; existing borrowers must repay by then or accept default, and a dedicated withdrawal tool will follow for assets left in the protocol.
The Numbers Behind a 99% Collapse
At its March 2023 peak, Blur handled roughly $1.43 billion in monthly volume and more than 70% of all Ethereum NFT trading, according to DefiLlama data cited by CoinDesk. By March 2026 that figure had fallen below $7 million, a decline of more than 99.5%. Token Terminal records $0 in protocol revenue for the marketplace over the past three years despite those billions in trades, because Blur charged no trading fees. The BLUR token fell more than 20% after the announcement, and the site still advertises more than $7.4 billion in lifetime volume.
Why Fee-Free Volume Was Never a Business
Blur launched in 2022 and took on OpenSea by offering pro traders faster transactions, lower fees and token rewards. The strategy worked as a volume play but not as a revenue model: zero marketplace fees meant the platform earned nothing directly from trading, and its aggressive incentive programs drew criticism for encouraging speculative, reward-seeking activity rather than genuine collecting. The picture has limits: CoinDesk notes the $0 revenue figure does not establish whether Blend earned income from lending, and Blur, unlike sister network Blast, has not publicly attributed the shutdown to operating losses.
What the Shutdown Closes for the NFT Market
The move is the second retreat in ten days by projects from the team of Tieshun Roquerre, known as Pacman. Blast’s shutdown followed its assets falling from more than $2 billion to about $32 million, and it did cite costs exceeding revenue. Together the two closures mark a clear exit from the incentive-driven NFT and Layer 2 era of 2022 and 2023. What to watch next: the November 12 deadline, whether Blend borrowers repay or default, the release of the Blend withdrawal tool, and whether BLUR holders ever vote to switch fees on.
AUTHOR
Tokoni Uti is a Lagos-based writer with several years of experience. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Free Press and the San Diego Free press among others. She is a graduate of Bowen University.
Blur will retire its trading website on November 12, leaving its marketplace contracts on Ethereum while its Blend lending service stops matching new loans. Its exit from the interface business follows the closures or contraction of several NFT venues. The distinction between an NFT, the contract that transfers it and the website through which a holder can manage it now matters more than the industry’s old volume rankings.
Summary
Blur’s website will close on November 12, 2026, while its Ethereum marketplace contracts remain operational. Blend will stop matching new loans on November 12, and borrowers must repay or face the protocol’s default process. X2Y2 shut its marketplace in April 2025, while Binance NFT ended service in July 2026. Magic Eden left Bitcoin and EVM NFT trading in March 2026 but continued operating its Solana marketplace. Blur’s March 2026 monthly volume was under $7 million, compared with about $1.43 billion in March 2023. Blur’s October 12 notice set a date for retiring its frontend, the website through which most people encounter its marketplace. The protocol will remain operational on Ethereum, and BLUR holders will retain control of its fee switch. A separate Blend notice said the lending service would stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers have until then to repay or allow their loans to default; a later withdrawal interface is promised for remaining assets.
JUST IN: s ethereum:0x5283d291dbcf85356a21ba090e6db59121208b44 drops 32% as Blur marketplace announces shut down of its marketplace frontend on Nov. 12
Blend will stop matching new loans on the same date, giving borrowers until then to repay or risk default, while Blur’s… pic.twitter.com/z9Aw62b4FW
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 13, 2026 Those sentences describe different kinds of continuity. Smart contracts can keep accepting transactions after the company stops maintaining a familiar website. A borrower who needs to manage a loan has a more immediate problem than a collector whose NFT simply remains in a wallet. Comparing Blur with other retreats reveals which functions survived and which depended on a business paying to keep the doors open.
Blur is retiring its interface, not deleting Ethereum assets Blur’s October news described a platform built for traders who needed collection bids, bulk actions and tools that a conventional gallery style marketplace did not provide. Its fee free trading model and token incentives helped it gain share during the 2023 NFT boom. The closure announcement does not say that Ethereum tokens traded on Blur will disappear. Ownership is recorded in the respective NFT contracts, which are separate from the marketplace website.
A marketplace contract is another layer. It can execute a transaction if a user or replacement interface supplies the required call and the relevant approvals, payment and signatures remain valid. A contract remaining live is not a commitment that a team will maintain search, order books, customer support, analytics or a convenient way to cancel an old listing. Blur has not announced a replacement marketplace interface. The practical usability of its contracts after November 12 will depend on outside tools and the status of existing orders.
The BLUR token will continue to govern the protocol fee switch, according to the project. That is a defined governance role, not a promise that fees will be turned on or distributed to token holders. Blur did not announce a new business plan in the shutdown notice. The value of a fee switch depends on future trading activity, decisions by token holders and the contract’s actual economics.
CoinDesk’s comparison of marketplace data puts Blur’s monthly volume at roughly $1.43 billion in March 2023 and below $7 million in March 2026. Even taking $7 million as the upper bound, the fall exceeds 99.5%. Gross trades are not revenue. At a zero marketplace fee, a billion dollars of turnover can produce no transaction fee for the protocol. Incentive costs and the economics of the company behind the website are separate questions for which the public notice offers no complete accounts.
Blend leaves borrowers with a different deadline Blend introduced lending against NFTs in 2023. A borrower pledges a collectible as collateral, receives funds and remains subject to the loan’s refinancing and default rules. The lender’s claim and the borrower’s ability to recover the NFT are governed by the loan arrangement, not by a headline saying a marketplace has shut down. Blur’s Blend schedule is therefore the more consequential notice for a user with an open position.
New loan matching ends November 12. Existing borrowers have a choice under the published statement: repay by then or allow default. Blur says it will provide a frontend tool after the cutoff for users to withdraw assets from Blend. It has not, in that notice, specified the launch time of the withdrawal tool, a complete list of supported positions or a current total of outstanding loans. An editor cannot infer that every lender or borrower has identical choices from the single sentence announcing the service change.
A trade in an NFT and a loan secured by an NFT involve different counterparties. Market liquidity can vanish without transferring ownership of a token. A lending default can change rights to pledged collateral even though a token still exists on Ethereum. Holders should distinguish the marketplace deadline from their own contract terms, and verify any recovery instructions through the project’s official channels. Closure announcements are particularly easy for impersonators to copy.
The original Blend launch explanation describes peer to peer loans without fixed expiration, and explains refinancing auctions. Those mechanics help explain why winding down new matches may matter before an old loan has a simple calendar maturity. The current notice controls the announced timeline; the 2023 design document is context for how the protocol worked, not a substitute for current position specific terms.
Which NFT businesses actually closed? X2Y2’s founder said in March 2025 that its marketplace would close on April 30 after three years. The team cited the drop in NFT trading and its decision to move into other work. Contracts remaining onchain did not preserve a functioning marketplace business. X2Y2 had reported $5.6 billion in lifetime volume, a cumulative measure that said little about the volume available to pay for future operations.
"After an incredible 3-year journey, I have some important news to share: X2Y2 will be sunsetting as an NFT marketplace on April 30, 2025. The contracts will remain live, but the platform itself will shut down." CEO @tp_x2y2 @the_x2y2 shuts down its NFT marketplace. pic.twitter.com/LqvTQjlyeE
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) March 31, 2025 MakersPlace announced its closure in 2025 after struggling with deteriorating conditions for digital art. Its account of the shutdown describes efforts to preserve access to works and help users recover assets held through its custody arrangements. The distinction matters: a self controlled NFT in a wallet and a work accessed through an account or embedded wallet do not require the same exit instructions. The company’s later shutdown account says winding down the site and business took almost 10 months.
Foundation’s founder said in May 2026 that an attempted rescue transaction had failed and its marketplace would not return to active service. The temporary restoration reported at the time was designed to let users delist NFTs and secure assets. A site briefly available for withdrawals should not be counted as a restored venue.
Binance closed its NFT marketplace in July 2026, giving users a deadline to withdraw transferable NFTs. Its NFT venue was part of a much larger exchange; the closure was of the NFT product, not Binance as a company. Magic Eden ended Bitcoin and EVM marketplace support in March 2026 while keeping its Solana marketplace. It is inaccurate to say Magic Eden as a whole went out of business. Each retreat removed a different route into NFT trading.
PlatformChangeWhat remained or required attentionBlurWebsite scheduled to close November 12, 2026Ethereum contracts continue; Blend users face a loan deadlineX2Y2Marketplace closed April 30, 2025Existing onchain assets and contracts did not preserve the trading siteMakersPlaceCompany and site closed during 2025Asset access depended partly on custody and retrieval arrangementsFoundationMarketplace closure confirmed in May 2026Temporary user access for delisting and securing assetsBinance NFTNFT product ended in July 2026Parent exchange continued; transferable NFTs had a withdrawal deadlineMagic EdenBitcoin and EVM trading ended in March 2026Solana marketplace continued Trading volume hid the business question The NFT industry often ranked venues by gross turnover. Volume can indicate liquidity, but it cannot by itself explain whether a marketplace can pay engineers, customer support, indexing services and security reviewers. Multiply Blur’s March 2026 volume ceiling of $7 million by a zero trading fee and transaction fee revenue remains zero. Other income streams, if any, would require separate accounting. The calculation is simple, but it cuts through the common assumption that a large historical volume figure proves a lasting business.
Trading incentives further complicate comparisons. A platform that rewards activity can attract orders that would not occur at the same frequency without rewards. Collection bids and rapid flips can make a venue essential to traders for a period without making it the default place for long term collectors. When incentives end, the relevant question is how much organic flow remains and whether that flow pays enough to maintain the service. Public volume alone cannot divide organic trades from incentive motivated ones.
For users, concentration has another cost. If collectors, lenders and developers arrange their workflows around one website, its closure can disrupt listings and price discovery even when ownership is decentralized. Interfaces perform indexing, filtering and presentation work that a raw Ethereum node does not provide. OpenSea and other surviving venues can list assets, but existing orders, fee settings, royalties and lender claims may not migrate as a simple website redirect.
The competing view deserves weight. A protocol can outlive its original operator precisely because its contracts are public and composable. Developers could create a replacement Blur interface, and users can move NFT inventory across marketplaces without a central registry moving their tokens. Blur’s continued contracts give that argument a concrete basis. What has not been shown is whether independent teams will provide the full set of tools and order discovery that the closing website supplied, or how much demand will remain for them.
The exit problem differs by asset and account An NFT holder with a token in a self controlled wallet can check the collection contract and wallet address on Ethereum regardless of the Blur website. A user with an outstanding Blend loan needs to inspect the loan’s terms and collateral status before November 12. A trader with an active listing may need to understand where the signed order can still be executed and how to revoke it. A maker who relied on a platform to host images or metadata needs to check where those files live. One closure notice cannot settle all four situations.
Token ownership and media availability are separate. NFT metadata may point to files hosted on decentralized networks, a project’s server or a third party. A marketplace typically displays information it fetches from those locations. Its closure can remove a convenient display without deleting the token or the underlying file. If the file itself depends on a service that ends, a holder can face a different problem: a token that remains transferable but displays a broken reference. The answer depends on each collection’s contract and storage design.
The same care applies to approvals. A user may have authorized a marketplace contract to transfer a collection or a token. Whether that approval remains active after the site closes depends on the contract and wallet state. A disappearing interface does not automatically revoke permissions. Equally, a general claim that every old approval is dangerous would be unsupported. The practical check is an onchain view of the wallet’s current authorizations, using independently verified contract addresses.
The platform exits do not establish that NFT art, game items or collectible markets have ended. OpenSea expanded Solana support in 2026, and Magic Eden retained Solana trading even as it closed other lines. The closures do establish that several specific services could not or did not continue in their prior form. Any account of an industry wide collapse has to separate a company’s finances from demand for each chain and collection.
Blast is connected to Blur, but it is a separate closure Blast, the Ethereum layer 2 associated with Blur founder Tieshun Roquerre, announced its own wind down on October 2. Its stated issue was that network costs exceeded revenue. Blast users were told to move assets back to Ethereum by an interface deadline; later contract access was described as a recovery route. A layer 2 network is infrastructure, not an NFT marketplace, so counting Blast as another marketplace closure would misstate the pattern.
The connection is still useful. Both projects made user access depend on maintained interfaces and operating teams, and both published paths for users to interact with surviving onchain systems. Network shutdown adds a bridge and asset migration problem that an Ethereum based marketplace frontend does not create. A collector holding an Ethereum NFT listed on Blur should not assume the Blast withdrawal schedule applies to that token. A Blast user should not rely on Blur’s November date for funds on the layer 2.
Chronology matters here: Blast announced its plan 10 days before Blur’s October 12 notice. That sequence is observable. It does not prove that one shutdown caused the other, nor does it disclose how the projects allocated staff or funds. The public announcements state different operational reasons and deadlines.
What could reverse the marketplace retreat? A recovery in NFT trading would improve the opportunity for marketplaces, but volume alone would not solve a model with no transaction fee. Surviving venues may earn from fees, ancillary tools, launch services or lending, each carrying its own costs and dependence on users. Measuring sustainable activity would require comparing fee income, incentives paid, repeat users, development spending and liquidity across collections. The closure notices do not publish a sector wide ledger with all of those entries.
JUST IN: Billionaire NFT collector Adam Weitsman buys 117 Pudgy Penguins NFTs
Weitsman says the purchases were meant to support the collection during a tough period, as Pudgy Penguins’ weekly NFT sales surged 125.66% through Oct. 10, according to CryptoSlam. pic.twitter.com/EmCwiq8Sy1
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 12, 2026 NFTs also have uses that are not repeated marketplace trades. A gallery can be maintained for long held art while trading remains light. A game item can be useful inside a game without changing hands every week. These use cases do not automatically finance a broad trading terminal. Conversely, strong demand for the asset category would not guarantee the survival of any particular intermediary that once captured its trading flow.
The narrower conclusion is more useful than a proclamation that NFTs are dead. Blur, X2Y2, MakersPlace, Foundation and Binance NFT had different clients and structures, yet each reduced or ended a service once presented as durable. A holder should know the location of the token, the identity of any custodian, the state of active orders and the deadlines for a live loan. Those facts survive headline debates about the sector.
What to watch November 12 website cutoff: Check whether Blur publishes exact steps for listings, bids and contract interaction before the frontend closes. Blend loan matching: Track whether new matches stop on schedule and how existing borrower and lender positions are handled. Withdrawal interface: Verify the release date, supported positions and official domain of the promised Blend recovery tool. Independent interfaces: Look for a working third party interface to Blur’s contracts and evidence of actual order flow after the website closes. Marketplace economics: Compare post closure trading activity with observable fee income instead of treating historical gross volume as revenue. FAQ Is Blur shutting down completely? No. Its website is scheduled to close on November 12, 2026, while its Ethereum marketplace contracts remain operational. The announcement does not guarantee continued maintenance of the familiar interface.
Will NFTs bought through Blur disappear? A Blur website closure does not delete an Ethereum NFT held in a wallet. A particular collection’s metadata and media depend on its own storage arrangement.
What happens to Blend loans on November 12? Blend stops matching new loans. Blur says borrowers must repay by the date or allow default under the protocol, and promises a later withdrawal interface.
Did Magic Eden shut down too? Magic Eden ended Bitcoin and EVM NFT marketplace support in March 2026 but continued its Solana marketplace. Calling the entire company closed would be inaccurate.
When did X2Y2 close its marketplace? X2Y2 announced an April 30, 2025 marketplace shutdown. Its founder cited the sharp fall in NFT trading and a move toward other work.
Can a listing remain executable after a website closes? Potentially, depending on the signed order, contract state and approvals. The shutdown notice alone does not cancel every authorization; users should check their own onchain position.
Was Blast another NFT marketplace that closed? No. Blast was a separate Ethereum layer 2 project associated with Blur’s founder. Its October 2 wind down involved network and bridge withdrawals.
Does the closure prove NFTs have no buyers? No. It establishes a change in several specific marketplace businesses. Other venues and collections still operate, and NFT ownership is separate from the survival of a trading site. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Figures reflect regulatory filings and reporting available at the time of writing and change with each disclosure. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of October 13, 2026.
At 19:59 UTC on October 12, 2026, Blur said it will deprecate the Blur frontend on November 12, 2026. The marketplace protocol will remain operational onchain, and $BLUR holders will retain control of its fee switch.
The same deadline applies to Blend’s loan-matching service. Blur said Blend will stop matching new loans on November 12. Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default. After the cutoff, Blur plans to provide a frontend tool that helps users withdraw assets from Blend.
The announcement separates the interfaces from the contracts. Blur is retiring the website used to reach its marketplace, while the marketplace protocol itself stays live. Blend’s change is narrower in wording but more direct for borrowers: new loan matching stops, existing borrowers face a repay-or-default decision, and asset withdrawal moves to a tool that Blur has not yet released.
What the Blend cutoff changes
Blend was designed as a peer-to-peer perpetual lending protocol for arbitrary collateral, including NFTs. Its published design has no oracle dependency and no fixed expiry. A borrowing position can remain open until liquidation, while lenders set loan terms through market offers rather than a protocol price feed.
The lack of an oracle changes where risk decisions sit. Blend does not ask a shared price feed to decide when an NFT position should be liquidated or what rate a borrower should pay. Each lender chooses the interest rate and loan-to-value ratio it will accept. The protocol then tests whether another lender will refinance the debt when the current lender wants to leave.
The design also avoids scheduled maturity dates. Blend says a position rolls automatically for as long as some lender remains willing to finance the amount against the collateral. Users need an onchain transaction when a rate changes or when either side exits. This cuts routine rollover transactions, but continued financing still depends on lender availability.
In the normal flow, a lender signs an offchain offer specifying the principal, interest rate and collateral collection. A borrower accepts a compatible offer onchain, places the NFT in a vault with a lien, and receives the principal. Blend matches each loan individually instead of pooling lenders’ funds.
The perpetual structure does not guarantee that a borrower can keep a position forever. Loans continue only while a lender is willing to finance the debt against the collateral. Interest accrues continuously, and the contract calculates repayment when an interaction requires it. Borrowers can repay at any time. They can also replace a loan atomically by taking a new loan against the same collateral and using the new principal to close the old debt.
Lenders have two exit paths in the design. A lender can submit a compatible offer from another lender and transfer the position without an auction. Otherwise, the lender can trigger a refinancing auction in which the offered interest rate rises until a new lender accepts. The replacement lender pays the old lender the full repayment amount and takes over the loan at the auction’s rate.
If no lender accepts before the auction reaches its defined maximum rate, the protocol treats the position as non-viable and liquidates the borrower. The existing lender can then claim the collateral. Blend therefore uses the availability of refinancing, rather than an oracle’s estimate of the NFT’s value, to determine whether debt can continue.
Stopping new matching removes the path Blur currently provides for originating loans after November 12. The announcement does not explain whether any refinancing functionality will remain available through other interfaces or direct contract calls. It tells current borrowers to repay or allow default before the deadline, which makes the status of each open loan the immediate operational question for users.
What remains onchain
Blur said the marketplace protocol will continue running after the frontend disappears. Traders or developers may still be able to interact with those contracts through other software, but Blur did not name a replacement marketplace interface in the announcement. The team also said $BLUR will continue to control the protocol’s fee switch.
That governance role is consistent with the original Blend design. The paper says Blur’s implementation gives $BLUR governance control over selected protocol parameters after a 180-day waiting period. Those parameters include borrower and lender fees, the maximum interest rate reached before liquidation, and the formula used to raise the offered rate during a refinancing auction. The protocol does not ask governance to value collateral or set loan-to-value ratios.
The announced withdrawal tool is different from keeping the full Blend loan interface open. Blur described it only as a way to help users withdraw assets after the deadline. No separate release date accompanied that promise. It did not provide the tool’s URL, contract scope, release time or instructions for borrowers whose loans enter refinancing near the cutoff.
For marketplace users, the key distinction is that contract availability does not preserve Blur’s own web access. For Blend users, the practical deadline concerns debt rather than the token fee switch. Borrowers need to review open positions before November 12 and choose between repayment and the default path described by Blur. Lenders need to account for the end of new matching through the official interface and for the absence of published details about post-cutoff refinancing.
The next dated milestone is November 12, 2026. Blur still needs to specify when its withdrawal tool will appear and whether users will have any supported route for refinancing or managing active Blend loans after matching stops.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
NFT marketplace Blur said Monday it will shut down its frontend next month, while its onchain marketplace protocol will remain operational. BLUR will continue to control the protocol's fee switch.
"Blend will stop matching new loans on November 12, 2026," Blur said in a post on X. "Borrowers have until then to repay their loans or allow them to default. After this date, we will provide a frontend tool to help users withdraw their assets from Blend."
The announcement comes shortly after the Ethereum Layer 2 Blast said it would wind down, followed by the Pudgy Penguins-backed Ethereum L2 Abstract.
Blast was created by Tieshun "Pacman" Roquerre, Blur's founder, and developed by the same core team. Roquerre outlined his ambition to build the "Binance of NFTs" in early 2023, when he doxxed himself. Blur's low creator-royalty policy also helped intensify competition among NFT marketplaces and put pressure on creator revenues, including those of Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Blur has faced criticism for its incentive-driven approach to NFT trading, which critics say encouraged airdrop farming and suspected wash trading while putting pressure on creator royalties. Its association with Blast has also drawn scrutiny over the sustainability of growth strategies built around token incentives and liquidity rewards.
Blur's monthly trading volume peaked at around $1.43 billion in March 2023; exactly three years later, monthly volume had plummeted to under $7 million, according to The Block's data.
Ethereum NFT marketplace monthly volume. Source: The Block/Token Terminal The BLUR token fell more than 20% following the announcement to around $0.015, giving it a market capitalization of approximately $44 million. The token traded above $5 in early 2023.
An account holding over $10 million in unrealized profit buys the dip again, opening combined long positions in BTC, HYPE, and ZEC totaling more than $60 million.
According to TradingBeats’ monitoring, a whale address on Hyperliquid starting with 0xedcd made consecutive buys of approximately 96 BTC, 17,283 HYPE, and 1,215 ZEC this morning, at average prices of roughly $81,597, $80.59, and $1,145.83 respectively. The combined notional value of these three new long positions totals around $10.62 million, with an unrealized profit of roughly $300,000 so far. The address’s total long position value now exceeds $60.95 million, bringing its total unrealized profit to approximately $11.91 million. The address was previously labeled a suspected "819 Insider Whale" by market participants after it loaded up on $38.72 million worth of positions roughly one hour before the ETH rally began on August 19. Currently, the whale still holds 20,000 ETH long positions, worth approximately $50.33 million, with 4x full leverage, and an unrealized profit of around $11.61 million.
3 minutes ago
Is the iPhone version of Doubao Assistant on the way? Pelican lets AI keep running on the lock screen.
Beating AI News Brief: Developer Finn Voorhees has unveiled Pelican, an iPhone AI Agent app now in limited TestFlight testing with a full launch planned for the near future. The app supports tools including MCP, browser operations, and maps, and can connect to AI models from various vendors. According to Voorhees, the Agent executes tasks directly on the iPhone, continuing to work even when switching apps or locking the screen—eliminating the need for an additional Mac mini. Just days ago, he demonstrated Pi Agent paired with Claude Opus 5.5 to operate an iPhone, automatically opening Ryanair to search for flight tickets, with no computer involved in the entire process. Voorhees previously open-sourced PiDurableKit, which leverages Apple’s JavaScriptCore to run Pi Agent on iPhone and uses SQLite to save task states, allowing the Agent to resume execution after being interrupted by the system. PiChat, a chat app built on this framework, also uses Apple’s background task mechanism to keep the Agent working after switching to other apps. When asked if Pelican runs entirely locally, Voorhees replied that all components except model API requests run on the device. He also plans to integrate small local models, so the Agent can handle some private data without uploading it to the cloud. Pelican remains in early testing, and Voorhees has not yet confirmed whether it includes the cross-app click capability demonstrated earlier.
3 minutes ago
Two addresses linked to BIT each purchased 12,000 ETH, pushing their total long position to $60 million.
According to TradingBeats' monitoring, this morning, addresses under BIT (formerly Matrixport) — 0xbd1c…ff0e and 0x2371…0883 — successively added positions, purchasing 12,000 ETH each for a total of 24,000 ETH bought. The average holding prices of the two addresses are approximately $2,420 and $2,422 respectively. Currently, the combined ETH long positions held by the two addresses use 20x full-position leverage, with a position value of around $60.29 million and total unrealized profit of roughly $2.19 million. ETH is currently trading at approximately $2,512, up about 3.8% from the average holding price of the two addresses.
3 minutes ago
OKX will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-denominated X-Perp contracts today.
OKX official announcement shows that the platform will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts on October 13, with support for web, mobile app and API trading. The specific opening times (Beijing Time) are as follows: 16:00 for WUSD-based X-Perp contracts, and 16:15 for BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts.
3 minutes ago
Papertrade’s revenue reached $4.02 million in the past 24 hours, surpassing Pump and Hyperliquid.
According to DefiLlama data, Papertrade’s 24-hour revenue hit $4.02 million, placing it third in the overall protocol revenue rankings. It outpaces Pump ($2.11 million) and Hyperliquid ($1.7 million), coming in second only to Tether and Circle.
3 minutes ago
Neura will shut down its v1 testnet and Neuraverse.
AI-native economy Layer 1 (L1) blockchain project Neura announced via tweet that it will take offline its v1 testnet and Neuraverse as it moves to the next phase. The team has taken full snapshots of point balances, leaderboards, task completions, and activity histories to ensure no data is lost.
An account holding over $10 million in unrealized profit buys the dip again, opening combined long positions in BTC, HYPE, and ZEC totaling more than $60 million.
According to TradingBeats’ monitoring, a whale address on Hyperliquid starting with 0xedcd made consecutive buys of approximately 96 BTC, 17,283 HYPE, and 1,215 ZEC this morning, at average prices of roughly $81,597, $80.59, and $1,145.83 respectively. The combined notional value of these three new long positions totals around $10.62 million, with an unrealized profit of roughly $300,000 so far. The address’s total long position value now exceeds $60.95 million, bringing its total unrealized profit to approximately $11.91 million. The address was previously labeled a suspected "819 Insider Whale" by market participants after it loaded up on $38.72 million worth of positions roughly one hour before the ETH rally began on August 19. Currently, the whale still holds 20,000 ETH long positions, worth approximately $50.33 million, with 4x full leverage, and an unrealized profit of around $11.61 million.
3 minutes ago
Is the iPhone version of Doubao Assistant on the way? Pelican lets AI keep running on the lock screen.
Beating AI News Brief: Developer Finn Voorhees has unveiled Pelican, an iPhone AI Agent app now in limited TestFlight testing with a full launch planned for the near future. The app supports tools including MCP, browser operations, and maps, and can connect to AI models from various vendors. According to Voorhees, the Agent executes tasks directly on the iPhone, continuing to work even when switching apps or locking the screen—eliminating the need for an additional Mac mini. Just days ago, he demonstrated Pi Agent paired with Claude Opus 5.5 to operate an iPhone, automatically opening Ryanair to search for flight tickets, with no computer involved in the entire process. Voorhees previously open-sourced PiDurableKit, which leverages Apple’s JavaScriptCore to run Pi Agent on iPhone and uses SQLite to save task states, allowing the Agent to resume execution after being interrupted by the system. PiChat, a chat app built on this framework, also uses Apple’s background task mechanism to keep the Agent working after switching to other apps. When asked if Pelican runs entirely locally, Voorhees replied that all components except model API requests run on the device. He also plans to integrate small local models, so the Agent can handle some private data without uploading it to the cloud. Pelican remains in early testing, and Voorhees has not yet confirmed whether it includes the cross-app click capability demonstrated earlier.
3 minutes ago
Two addresses linked to BIT each purchased 12,000 ETH, pushing their total long position to $60 million.
According to TradingBeats' monitoring, this morning, addresses under BIT (formerly Matrixport) — 0xbd1c…ff0e and 0x2371…0883 — successively added positions, purchasing 12,000 ETH each for a total of 24,000 ETH bought. The average holding prices of the two addresses are approximately $2,420 and $2,422 respectively. Currently, the combined ETH long positions held by the two addresses use 20x full-position leverage, with a position value of around $60.29 million and total unrealized profit of roughly $2.19 million. ETH is currently trading at approximately $2,512, up about 3.8% from the average holding price of the two addresses.
3 minutes ago
OKX will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-denominated X-Perp contracts today.
OKX official announcement shows that the platform will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts on October 13, with support for web, mobile app and API trading. The specific opening times (Beijing Time) are as follows: 16:00 for WUSD-based X-Perp contracts, and 16:15 for BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts.
3 minutes ago
Papertrade’s revenue reached $4.02 million in the past 24 hours, surpassing Pump and Hyperliquid.
According to DefiLlama data, Papertrade’s 24-hour revenue hit $4.02 million, placing it third in the overall protocol revenue rankings. It outpaces Pump ($2.11 million) and Hyperliquid ($1.7 million), coming in second only to Tether and Circle.
3 minutes ago
Neura will shut down its v1 testnet and Neuraverse.
AI-native economy Layer 1 (L1) blockchain project Neura announced via tweet that it will take offline its v1 testnet and Neuraverse as it moves to the next phase. The team has taken full snapshots of point balances, leaderboards, task completions, and activity histories to ensure no data is lost.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
An account holding over $10 million in unrealized profit buys the dip again, opening combined long positions in BTC, HYPE, and ZEC totaling more than $60 million.
According to TradingBeats’ monitoring, a whale address on Hyperliquid starting with 0xedcd made consecutive buys of approximately 96 BTC, 17,283 HYPE, and 1,215 ZEC this morning, at average prices of roughly $81,597, $80.59, and $1,145.83 respectively. The combined notional value of these three new long positions totals around $10.62 million, with an unrealized profit of roughly $300,000 so far. The address’s total long position value now exceeds $60.95 million, bringing its total unrealized profit to approximately $11.91 million. The address was previously labeled a suspected "819 Insider Whale" by market participants after it loaded up on $38.72 million worth of positions roughly one hour before the ETH rally began on August 19. Currently, the whale still holds 20,000 ETH long positions, worth approximately $50.33 million, with 4x full leverage, and an unrealized profit of around $11.61 million.
3 minutes ago
Is the iPhone version of Doubao Assistant on the way? Pelican lets AI keep running on the lock screen.
Beating AI News Brief: Developer Finn Voorhees has unveiled Pelican, an iPhone AI Agent app now in limited TestFlight testing with a full launch planned for the near future. The app supports tools including MCP, browser operations, and maps, and can connect to AI models from various vendors. According to Voorhees, the Agent executes tasks directly on the iPhone, continuing to work even when switching apps or locking the screen—eliminating the need for an additional Mac mini. Just days ago, he demonstrated Pi Agent paired with Claude Opus 5.5 to operate an iPhone, automatically opening Ryanair to search for flight tickets, with no computer involved in the entire process. Voorhees previously open-sourced PiDurableKit, which leverages Apple’s JavaScriptCore to run Pi Agent on iPhone and uses SQLite to save task states, allowing the Agent to resume execution after being interrupted by the system. PiChat, a chat app built on this framework, also uses Apple’s background task mechanism to keep the Agent working after switching to other apps. When asked if Pelican runs entirely locally, Voorhees replied that all components except model API requests run on the device. He also plans to integrate small local models, so the Agent can handle some private data without uploading it to the cloud. Pelican remains in early testing, and Voorhees has not yet confirmed whether it includes the cross-app click capability demonstrated earlier.
3 minutes ago
Two addresses linked to BIT each purchased 12,000 ETH, pushing their total long position to $60 million.
According to TradingBeats' monitoring, this morning, addresses under BIT (formerly Matrixport) — 0xbd1c…ff0e and 0x2371…0883 — successively added positions, purchasing 12,000 ETH each for a total of 24,000 ETH bought. The average holding prices of the two addresses are approximately $2,420 and $2,422 respectively. Currently, the combined ETH long positions held by the two addresses use 20x full-position leverage, with a position value of around $60.29 million and total unrealized profit of roughly $2.19 million. ETH is currently trading at approximately $2,512, up about 3.8% from the average holding price of the two addresses.
3 minutes ago
OKX will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-denominated X-Perp contracts today.
OKX official announcement shows that the platform will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts on October 13, with support for web, mobile app and API trading. The specific opening times (Beijing Time) are as follows: 16:00 for WUSD-based X-Perp contracts, and 16:15 for BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts.
3 minutes ago
Papertrade’s revenue reached $4.02 million in the past 24 hours, surpassing Pump and Hyperliquid.
According to DefiLlama data, Papertrade’s 24-hour revenue hit $4.02 million, placing it third in the overall protocol revenue rankings. It outpaces Pump ($2.11 million) and Hyperliquid ($1.7 million), coming in second only to Tether and Circle.
3 minutes ago
Neura will shut down its v1 testnet and Neuraverse.
AI-native economy Layer 1 (L1) blockchain project Neura announced via tweet that it will take offline its v1 testnet and Neuraverse as it moves to the next phase. The team has taken full snapshots of point balances, leaderboards, task completions, and activity histories to ensure no data is lost.
A snapshot of the Blur website as of Asian morning hours Tuesday. (CoinDesk)Summary
Blur will close its NFT marketplace website on Nov. 12 and stop arranging new loans through Blend, though its Ethereum smart contracts will remain operational.Monthly trading volume plunged more than 99.5%, from about $1.43 billion in March 2023 to less than $7 million in March 2026, while the fee-free marketplace recorded no protocol revenue over the past three years.The closure follows the shutdown announcement for Blast, another project created by Tieshun Roquerre, and sent the BLUR token down more than 20%.Blur, once the largest marketplace for trading Ethereum NFTs, is shutting down its website next month after trading activity collapsed more than 99% from its peak, marking the second major retreat in ten days for projects built by crypto entrepreneur Tieshun Roquerre.
The marketplace said Monday that its website will close on Nov. 12, while its NFT lending service, Blend, will stop arranging new loans.
Borrowers have until that date to repay their loans or allow them to default. Blur plans to provide a separate tool afterward for withdrawing assets from Blend.
Blur’s underlying smart contracts will remain operational on Ethereum, meaning the shutdown does not eliminate the blockchain-based trading system. BLUR tokenholders will retain control of its fee switch — a mechanism that allows them to vote on whether the marketplace should start charging trading fees.
The decision follows the Oct. 2 shutdown announcement from Blast, an Ethereum scaling network also created by Roquerre, better known as Pacman, and developed by the team behind Blur.
Blast once attracted more than $2 billion in assets, partly through rewards offered to users depositing funds. That figure had fallen to approximately $32 million when developers announced the closure, saying the network cost more to operate than it generated in revenue.
Blur's rise was just as dramatic.
Launched in 2022, it challenged the-then leader OpenSea by offering professional traders faster transactions, low fees and token rewards.
The strategy helped Blur capture more than 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023, when activity on the platform reached approximately $1.43 billion, DefiLlama data shows
By March 2026, that monthly volume had fallen below $7 million, a decline of more than 99.5%.
But Blur's marketplace generated no revenue from transaction fees for all that trading activity. The platform charged traders nothing, and Token Terminal records $0 in protocol revenue over the past three years, despite billions of dollars in NFT trades. However, the figure does not establish whether Blur earned money from its lending service or other activities.
Blur's aggressive incentive programs had attracted criticism for encouraging speculative trading and putting pressure on royalties paid to NFT creators. The trading figures alone do not establish how much activity came from genuine buyers rather than traders seeking rewards.
Meanwhile, unlike Blast, Blur has not publicly attributed its shutdown to operating losses.
Its website still advertises zero marketplace fees and more than $7.4 billion in lifetime trading volume, a reminder of how quickly the business once grew.
BLUR fell more than 20% following Monday's announcement, trading around $0.015. Blast users have until Oct. 26 to withdraw through the network's regular interface. Blur's separate shutdown follows on Nov. 12.
Coinbase will suspend perpetual contract trading for the following assets around 21:00 on August 26: Memecoin (MEME-PERP), The Sandbox (SAND-PERP), Moonbirds (BIRB-PERP), Blur (BLUR-PERP), Katana (KAT-PERP), SPX6900 (SPX-PERP), ZORA (ZORA-PERP), Axie Infinity (AXS-PERP), Gensyn (AI-PERP), and LayerZero (ZRO-PERP). Remaining open positions will be automatically settled, with the final settlement price based on the average index price of the 60 minutes prior to the trading suspension. The funding rate for the last cycle will be set to zero.
Relevant content
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group plans to launch an instant settlement service for Japanese government bonds using blockchain technology.
Japan’s largest banking group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) plans to leverage blockchain technology to offer instant settlement services for certain Japanese Government Bond (JGB) transactions. According to reports, MUFG will carry out blockchain-based JGB repurchase transactions using tokenized money market funds and stablecoins, with the goal of shortening the settlement process for traditional securities trades. (Nikkei)
4 hours ago
Goldman Sachs forecasts core PCE at 0.23%, slightly above core CPI and market consensus.
Following the release of CPI data, market focus has shifted to the July core PCE figures set to be published on August 26. Goldman Sachs projects July core PCE to rise 0.23% month-over-month, a slight uptick from core CPI and market consensus. Specifically, portfolio management fees are forecast to climb 8 basis points, reflecting second-quarter stock market gains. The investment bank notes that upcoming methodological adjustments may trigger volatility in PCE readings and drag down the annual core inflation rate. Goldman Sachs expects August core inflation to hold near 0.2%, and anticipates the Federal Reserve will maintain interest rates stable through the end of the year.
4 hours ago
Bank of America announces $250 billion infrastructure investment plan
Bank of America announced a $250 billion infrastructure investment plan on Wednesday, pledging to invest in key U.S. infrastructure sectors over the next year. The plan covers multiple areas including data centers and computing power, renewable energy generation, energy storage, natural gas, power transmission networks, and critical minerals and mining, aiming to support energy security, job growth, and economic competitiveness.
4 hours ago
The USDC Treasury has minted 250 million new USDC on Solana.
According to on-chain data, the USDC Treasury minted 250 million new USDC tokens on Solana 10 minutes ago.
4 hours ago
Morgan Stanley maintains its overweight rating on SpaceX, with a target price of $600 under a bull market scenario.
Morgan Stanley reaffirmed its overweight rating on SPCX, setting a target price of $300, and a $600 target in a bull case scenario. Analyst Adam Jonas believes the market is underestimating SpaceX’s broader AI platform, including its computing, connectivity, and real-time data capabilities. The upcoming Grok model could help narrow this valuation gap. Jonas views the approaching lock-up expiration as an opportunity rather than a risk, offering a potential entry point for investors.
4 hours ago
SpaceXAI launches Grok 4.6
According to official announcements, SpaceXAI has officially launched Grok 4.6. The official statement notes that Grok 4.6 prioritizes enhancing the capabilities of long-running agents, as well as boosting performance in more complex interactive and visualization tasks. It can sustain work on multi-step complex tasks, including researching topics, analyzing information, collaborating across codebases, or translating ideas into complete applications or work deliverables. Grok 4.6 has achieved leading performance across multiple agent coding and knowledge work benchmarks, with its Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index score matching that of GPT-5.6 Sol.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Coinbase will suspend trading in the following perpetual contracts around 21:00 on August 26: Memecoin (MEME-PERP), The Sandbox (SAND-PERP), Moonbirds (BIRB-PERP), Blur (BLUR-PERP), Katana (KAT-PERP), SPX6900 (SPX-PERP), ZORA (ZORA-PERP), Axie Infinity (AXS-PERP), Gensyn (AI-PERP), and LayerZero (ZRO-PERP). All remaining open positions will be automatically settled at that time, with the final settlement price calculated as the average index price over the 60 minutes prior to the trading suspension. The funding rate for the last cycle will be set to zero.
Relevant content
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group plans to launch an instant settlement service for Japanese government bonds using blockchain technology.
Japan’s largest banking group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) plans to leverage blockchain technology to offer instant settlement services for certain Japanese Government Bond (JGB) transactions. According to reports, MUFG will carry out blockchain-based JGB repurchase transactions using tokenized money market funds and stablecoins, with the goal of shortening the settlement process for traditional securities trades. (Nikkei)
4 hours ago
Goldman Sachs forecasts core PCE at 0.23%, slightly above core CPI and market consensus.
Following the release of CPI data, market focus has shifted to the July core PCE figures set to be published on August 26. Goldman Sachs projects July core PCE to rise 0.23% month-over-month, a slight uptick from core CPI and market consensus. Specifically, portfolio management fees are forecast to climb 8 basis points, reflecting second-quarter stock market gains. The investment bank notes that upcoming methodological adjustments may trigger volatility in PCE readings and drag down the annual core inflation rate. Goldman Sachs expects August core inflation to hold near 0.2%, and anticipates the Federal Reserve will maintain interest rates stable through the end of the year.
4 hours ago
Bank of America announces $250 billion infrastructure investment plan
Bank of America announced a $250 billion infrastructure investment plan on Wednesday, pledging to invest in key U.S. infrastructure sectors over the next year. The plan covers multiple areas including data centers and computing power, renewable energy generation, energy storage, natural gas, power transmission networks, and critical minerals and mining, aiming to support energy security, job growth, and economic competitiveness.
4 hours ago
The USDC Treasury has minted 250 million new USDC on Solana.
According to on-chain data, the USDC Treasury minted 250 million new USDC tokens on Solana 10 minutes ago.
4 hours ago
Morgan Stanley maintains its overweight rating on SpaceX, with a target price of $600 under a bull market scenario.
Morgan Stanley reaffirmed its overweight rating on SPCX, setting a target price of $300, and a $600 target in a bull case scenario. Analyst Adam Jonas believes the market is underestimating SpaceX’s broader AI platform, including its computing, connectivity, and real-time data capabilities. The upcoming Grok model could help narrow this valuation gap. Jonas views the approaching lock-up expiration as an opportunity rather than a risk, offering a potential entry point for investors.
4 hours ago
SpaceXAI launches Grok 4.6
According to official announcements, SpaceXAI has officially launched Grok 4.6. The official statement notes that Grok 4.6 prioritizes enhancing the capabilities of long-running agents, as well as boosting performance in more complex interactive and visualization tasks. It can sustain work on multi-step complex tasks, including researching topics, analyzing information, collaborating across codebases, or translating ideas into complete applications or work deliverables. Grok 4.6 has achieved leading performance across multiple agent coding and knowledge work benchmarks, with its Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index score matching that of GPT-5.6 Sol.
OpenSea has processed over $39.5 billion in all-time trading volume and, after its OS2 rebuild, supports 19 blockchains, maintaining the broadest multi-chain NFT coverage. Blur charges zero marketplace trading fees, compared to OpenSea’s 0.5% fee, making it measurably cheaper for high-volume traders who execute frequent transactions across collections. OpenSea launched OS2 in February 2025, adding cross-chain token trading and an XP rewards system, while Blur focuses on sweep tools and real-time floor analytics. OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer delayed the $SEA token launch indefinitely in March 2026, citing challenging market conditions, while Blur’s BLUR token has been live since 2023. OpenSea maintains roughly 382,000 monthly active traders against Blur’s 38,300, but Blur’s per-user trading volume is significantly higher due to its professional trader base. OpenSea processed 4.29 million NFT sales worth $167 million in September 2025 alone, according to DappRadar marketplace data. During that same period, Blur continued to capture disproportionate volume from professional traders using its sweep-and-snipe workflow.
The NFT marketplace landscape in 2026 is not a single-winner contest. Each platform serves a distinct user type, and choosing the wrong one can cost creators royalty revenue or cost traders execution speed.
This comparison examines fees, chain support, tools, token incentives, and user fit using verified data from official announcements and NFT market analytics.
Fee Structure and Cost of Trading OpenSea reduced its marketplace fee from 2.5% to 0.5% with the launch of OS2 in February 2025, as confirmed in the official press release. Swap fees were removed entirely. That 80% fee reduction narrowed the gap with Blur, which charges zero marketplace fees on trades. Blur users pay only Ethereum gas fees, with no platform commission on any transaction.
Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, stated in the OS2 announcement: “This represents an expansion of OpenSea from an NFT marketplace to a much broader platform for trading all types of digital assets,” according to the company’s press release dated February 13, 2025. The fee reduction accompanied a strategic pivot toward supporting fungible tokens alongside NFTs.
For a trader executing $10,000 in monthly NFT volume, OpenSea’s 0.5% fee costs $50 per month. On Blur, that same volume incurs $0 in platform fees, though gas costs apply equally to both platforms. Over the course of a year, the difference amounts to $600, a material gap for active traders but less significant for casual collectors buying a few pieces quarterly.
Creator royalties add another dimension. Blur historically made royalties optional, favoring traders, while OpenSea enforced creator earnings through its Seaport Protocol.
Platform Features and Chain Support OpenSea’s OS2 rebuild, which exited beta on May 29, 2025, supports token trading across 19 blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Flow, ApeChain, Soneium, Berachain, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Solana, and Base, as confirmed in the official blog post.
Finzer described the update: “We’ve rebuilt the platform from the ground up to become the best destination for everything on-chain, from NFTs to tokens, across chains and communities.”
Blur takes a different approach. Its product centers on Ethereum and prioritizes execution speed over chain breadth. Features include bulk listing, collection sweeping, real-time floor analytics, and portfolio tracking.
The interface resembles a professional trading terminal rather than a gallery. Blur also functions as an NFT aggregator, pulling listings from OpenSea and other platforms into a single interface for broader price discovery.
Analysis: The two platforms serve structurally different needs. OpenSea’s 19-chain support positions it as the default discovery layer for the NFT ecosystem, while Blur’s Ethereum-focused depth targets capital-efficient execution.
A creator launching a new collection benefits more from OpenSea’s reach. A trader rotating capital across floor-price opportunities benefits from Blur’s speed. Neither approach is universally superior.
Token Incentives and Loyalty Programs Blur launched its BLUR token through airdrops that rewarded trading activity, bidding near floor prices, and platform-exclusive listings. The incentive structure drew high-volume traders and temporarily pushed Blur’s market share past OpenSea’s, according to CoinMarketCap’s marketplace analysis.
Traders who listed exclusively on Blur received 100% of allocated loyalty points, while cross-platform listers received a reduced rate.
OpenSea responded with the Voyages rewards program, launched alongside OS2’s full release in May 2025. Voyages awards XP for completing quests such as cross-chain swaps, minting on new chains, or sharing galleries. The OpenSea Foundation announced the $SEA token in February 2025, designed to reward both active and historical users.
However, CEO Finzer announced in March 2026 that the $SEA launch was delayed indefinitely, citing “challenging crypto market conditions,” according to reporting from IQ.wiki. The delay leaves OpenSea without a live token while Blur’s BLUR continues to incentivize platform loyalty.
OpenSea committed 50% of platform fees to a Prize Vault starting September 15, 2025, pre-loaded with $1 million in OP and ARB tokens. That vault distributes rewards based on Treasure Chest tiers earned through platform engagement. The final rewards wave was announced concurrently with the $SEA delay, signaling a strategic pause before the token launch.
Regulatory Implications The SEC closed its investigation into OpenSea in February 2025, removing a significant legal overhang that had persisted since August 2024. That regulatory clarity contributed to OpenSea’s confidence in announcing $SEA. Blur, as a decentralized protocol with a live governance token, faces different regulatory considerations under the SEC’s evolving framework for DeFi protocols and token distributions.
What’s Next? OpenSea’s next catalyst is the eventual launch of the $SEA token, which could reshape user incentives and recapture market share from Blur among reward-motivated traders. Blur’s continued product development in professional tools and potential expansion beyond Ethereum will determine whether it can grow its 38,300 monthly active users.
The broader NFT market’s recovery from the 2022 to 2024 downturn will influence both platforms’ trajectories regardless of individual strategy.
FAQs What are OpenSea’s current marketplace fees?
OpenSea charges a 0.5% marketplace fee on NFT transactions, down from 2.5% following the OS2 platform launch in February 2025, with zero swap fees.
Does Blur charge any trading fees?
Blur charges zero marketplace trading fees on all NFT transactions, meaning buyers and sellers pay only Ethereum network gas fees, not platform commissions.
How many blockchains does OpenSea support?
OpenSea’s OS2 platform supports NFT and token trading across 19 blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Flow.
Is the OpenSea $SEA token live?
No, CEO Devin Finzer delayed the $SEA token launch indefinitely in March 2026, citing challenging crypto market conditions, and no new date has been announced.
Which platform is better for NFT creators?
OpenSea offers broader reach with 382,000 monthly active traders, multi-chain support, and enforced creator royalties, making it the stronger choice for creators.
What is Blur’s main advantage?
Blur provides zero trading fees, real-time floor analytics, bulk listing and sweeping tools, and portfolio tracking designed specifically for professional NFT traders.
Can I use both platforms simultaneously?
Yes, many traders list on both platforms, though Blur historically allocated higher loyalty points to users who listed exclusively on its marketplace.
References OpenSea OS2 Launch Press Release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/opensea-expands-to-token-trading-with-os2-launch-and-opensea-foundation-introduces-sea-302375914.html OpenSea OS2 Out of Beta Announcement: https://opensea.io/blog/articles/opensea-announces-os2-is-now-out-of-beta-token-trading-fully-live-across-19-chains-new-rewards-program-launches-and-community-hub-revamped DappRadar OpenSea Guide: https://dappradar.com/blog/opensea-nft-marketplace-token-launchpad-airdrop-features CoinMarketCap OpenSea vs Blur Analysis: https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/opensea-vs-blur
Onchain HighlightsDEFINITION: The relative amount (share) of gas consumed by the Ethereum network by transactions interacting with non-fungible tokens. This category includes token contract standards (ERC721, ERC1155) and NFT marketplaces (OpenSea, Blur, LooksRare, Rarible, SuperRare) for trading those.
Ethereum's gas usage by NFTs has exhibited significant shifts over the past few years, mainly as different platforms have gained and lost prominence. Recent data indicates that Blur and OpenSea have consistently dominated gas consumption since early 2024.
This reflects the increasing activity on these platforms as traders and collectors continue to engage in the NFT market. In contrast, platforms like Rarible and SuperRare show relatively lower gas usage, highlighting their smaller user bases or less frequent transactions.
Ethereum: Gas Usage by NFTs: (Source: Glassnode)Historically, significant spikes in gas usage by NFT transactions correlate with broader trends in Ethereum's price movements. For instance, the surge in early 2021 coincided with a considerable bull run in the crypto market, driving more transactions and higher gas fees. As Ethereum's price stabilized in mid-2023, NFT-related gas usage also normalized, illustrating the interconnectedness of these metrics.
The current landscape suggests that while new NFT marketplaces emerge, established platforms like Blur and OpenSea maintain relative dominance, continually influencing Ethereum's overall gas consumption patterns. This dynamic plays a crucial role in understanding the operational costs and transaction efficiency of the Ethereum network.
Ethereum: Gas Usage by NFTs: (Source: Glassnode)While relative usage may be compatible with past cycles, overall NFT gas usage has plummeted since January 2023 as a percentage of overall network activity. At its peak, gas usage broke 40%, with a consistent level above 30%. Current levels are below 4%, partly due to the increasing popularity of layer-2s like Base and side chains like Polygon and an overall downtrend in the NFT market.
PANews reported on August 6th that Pacman, co-founder of Blur and Blast, responded to netizens' questions on the X platform, saying: "Looking forward to showing you what we have coming next." It is reported that the most recent post on Blast's official X account was published on May 13th, and it has been approximately three months since then.
They were thought fit for the digital museum, stored away in the drawers of the 2021 bull market. Yet, NFTs haven’t said their last word. After months of lethargy, the market is regaining color and even surprising crypto players. Better still, they have just overtaken DeFi in number of active users, reversing a well-established trend. Behind this rebound are diverse uses and a strategy that appeals as much to brands as to seasoned investors.
In Brief NFTs recorded $530M in July, with an average price doubled to $105. DeFi reached a record $270B in total value locked, despite fewer users. Brands like Nike and Rolex explore NFTs for authentication and marketing. Hacks cost $132M in July, highlighting the ongoing fragility of the Web3 ecosystem. NFTs Lead the Dance, DeFi Holds the Cash In July, DeFi achieved a feat: $270 billion in total value locked (TVL), a historic record. But this financial triumph masks an unexpected reality: in terms of users, NFTs have taken the lead. 3.85 million daily active wallets interacted with NFT dapps, slightly more than DeFi, out of a total 22 million.
Industry dominance by UAW in the Dapp ecosystem – Source: Dapp Radar The explanation partly lies in the hegemony of Blur, capturing up to 80% of ETH volume, attracting professional traders and loan enthusiasts through its Blend protocol. OpenSea, on the other hand, remains the leader in daily active users (27,000 traders) thanks to a multichain and diversified offering. Zora attracts creators with a low-cost mint via its Layer 2 solution and its $ZORA token.
As DappRadar notes:
NFT trading volumes surged by 96%, propelling the sector ahead of DeFi in user numbers.
NFT: From Speculative Boom to the Era of Utility July figures speak: +96% trading volume ($530 million) compared to June, but -4% in transactions. Result: an average price doubled, rising from $52 to $105.
Blue-chip collections, like CryptoPunks (+25% in one month), drive this rebound: 9 of the 10 biggest NFT sales in 24 hours were Punks. Brands are not staying behind. Nike teams with EA Sports to launch virtual sneakers, Louis Vuitton and Rolex explore blockchain authentication, while Coca-Cola China tests digital collectibles.
NFT Trading Volume and Number of Sales Use cases are expanding: digital identity, event ticketing, gaming, tokenization of real assets. According to DappRadar:
NFTs are evolving from a simple trend to utility, shifting from collectibles and culture to identity, ticketing, gaming, and tokenization of real assets.
This shift towards utility marks a strategic change: fewer impulse buys, more integration into digital services.
A Web3 in Permanent Recomposition In the crypto ecosystem, the sector hierarchy changes fast. In July, gaming represented 22.4% of dapp activity, ahead of AI (18.7%) and NFTs (17.5%). DeFi, although declining in users, remains essential for capital: ETH surged 60% in a month – Ethereum’s crypto recently crossed the $4,000 mark -, and staking rewards reached 29.4% APY.
On Solana, Hyperliquid generated 35% of blockchain revenues, managing 60% of daily perpetual volume and $5.1 billion bridged in USDC. But not everything is rosy: exploits and hacks cost $132 million in July, a +16% increase from June.
Figures that redraw the Web3 ecosystem:
$270B: DeFi TVL record as of July 28; $530M: NFT volume in July, +96% month-over-month; 3.85M: daily active wallets on NFT dapps; $132M: losses due to exploits in July. Facing this picture, regulation advances: in the United States, the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act pave the way for smoother integration between decentralized and traditional finance. “Project Crypto”, presented by the SEC, even plans specific standards for DeFi.
NFTs are no longer just a trend: they are establishing themselves as a lever for transformation in the crypto universe. By diversifying their uses, they are creating new bridges between digital assets and traditional markets. A dynamic that could, in the long term, profoundly change how exchanges and trading are organized in Web3.
Maximize your Cointribune experience with our "Read to Earn" program! For every article you read, earn points and access exclusive rewards. Sign up now and start earning benefits.
Join the program
A
A
Lien copié
Mikaia A.
La révolution blockchain et crypto est en marche ! Et le jour où les impacts se feront ressentir sur l’économie la plus vulnérable de ce Monde, contre toute espérance, je dirai que j’y étais pour quelque chose
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage
American Bitcoin, backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., will begin trading on the Nasdaq next week in the family’s latest move to expand its crypto empire.
The listing, secured through a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, a publicly-listed BTC miner, fast-tracks the venture’s access to Wall Street capital without the need for an initial public offering (IPO).
As part of the transaction, Gryphon will implement a 5-for-1 reverse stock split to meet Nasdaq’s listing requirements. Gryphon Digital Mining shareholders approved the stock-for-stock merger on Wednesday, the company said in an Aug. 29 announcement.
“The Reverse Stock Split is expected to become effective as of 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 2, 2025,” it said.
Gryphon Digital Mining Announces Merger with American Bitcoin. Read the press release here: https://t.co/vtsk5yIzLJ $GRYP @AmericanBTC pic.twitter.com/Xg6JyUJ0tU
— Gryphon Digital Mining (@GryphonMining) May 12, 2025
The stock split means that every 5 shares held prior to the merger will become one share.
That will see the number of Gryphon Digital Mining shares get slashed from around 82.6 million to 16.6 million, before shares from the merger are added.
The company said that the overall value of the shares won’t change, just the stock price for each share. This is being done to meet the Nasdaq’s minimum share price requirement for listing.
After the merger closes, the stock will begin trading as Class A Common Stock under the ticker “ABTC.”
The shareholder vote and subsequent merger follows an initial agreement in May under which American Bitcoin would go public by merging with Gryphon Digital Mining.
Gryphon Digital Mining Shares Slump 10.5% Earlier this week, Gryphon Digital Mining’s shares surged after news of the merger broke. But yesterday they plunged 10.47%.
There was, however, some buying activity during the after-hour session, which saw the firm’s stock price climb over 1%, data from Google Finance shows.
Gryphon Digital Mining share price (Source: Google Finance)
Despite the recent pullback, the company’s stock is still up more than 17% over the past week and 54% on the monthly time frame.
American Bitcoin Set To Join Bitcoin Treasury Race American Bitcoin debuted in March after Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr rebranded American Data Center under the new name. The venture was launched in collaboration with Hut 8, a crypto mining and infrastructure company who holds 80% of the firm’s shares.
When it was launched, American Bitcoin was positioned as a “pure-play” Bitcoin mining company with the aim to add a large amount of BTC to its balance sheet.
American Bitcoin has officially disclosed holdings of 215 BTC. With the upcoming access to public markets, American Bitcoin will be able to raise more capital and increase its BTC holdings..
That’s as the Bitcoin treasury race heats up, with 310 companies collectively holding 3.68 million BTC on their balance sheets, data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows.
Related Articles: CFTC Clears Way For Offshore Crypto Exchanges To Service US Investors 21Shares Files For Spot SEI ETF, Joining 92 Crypto ETF Pipeline Ethereum NFT Project Doodles Joins Kaito AI For An NFT Leaderboard Best Wallet - Diversify Your Crypto Portfolio
Our Rating
Easy to Use, Feature-Driven Crypto Wallet Get Early Access to Upcoming Token ICOs Multi-Chain, Multi-Wallet, Non-Custodial Now On App Store, Google Play Stake To Earn Native Token $BEST 250,000+ Monthly Active Users
Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage
Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage
Elon Musk’s personal lawyer Alex Spiro will chair a new public company that plans to raise at least $200 million to create a Dogecoin (DOGE) treasury firm.
That’s according to a Fortune report that cited sources familiar with the matter who said the exact launch date and corporate structure of the digital asset treasury company is still unknown. It added that the entity is still in the pitching stage.
But the initiative also has the endorsement of House of Doge, a corporate entity that was launched in early 2025 by the Dogecoin Foundation, the report said.
Despite the news, the DOGE price slid over 1% in the past 24 hours to trade at $0.2174 as of 1:50 a.m. EST in line with a broad pullback that saw the crypto sector’s market cap drop over 2% to around $3.77 trillion.
DOGE price chart (Source: CoinMarketCap)
The meme coin has plunged more than 8% in the past week.
Number Of Dogecoin Treasuries Is Slowly Growing Up until now, crypto market leaders Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have been the preferred treasury cryptos, but there is growing interest from companies looking to build DOGE reserves.
In February, a Vancouver-based company called Neptune Digital Assets disclosed that it bought 1 million Dogecoin through a strategic derivative purchase. The average price for this buy was $0.37 per token. The company also bought 20 BTC as part of an effort to diversify its treasury.
In July, a Nasdaq-listed company called Bit Origin also announced that it had raised $500 million in debt and equity financing to build its own treasury around the meme coin. This made it the first US-traded company to openly disclose plans to add DOGE to its treasury.
Musk’s own electric vehicle company, Tesla, has also disclosed that it has a position in DOGE, without providing details of its holdings. The car manufacturer started accepting DOGE for select merchandise back in 2022.
Musk Has A History With DOGE Musk has a history with the meme coin that started all the way back in 2019, and he has referred to himself as ”The Dogefather.”
In April 2019, he made his first public comments about DOGE when he said, “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.”
Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2019
In July 2020, he posted the comment “It’s inevitable” on Twitter, as it was then known, with a Dogecoin-themed image that suggested the crypto could become a dominant force in the global financial system.
When asked to explain DOGE during a “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live in May 2021, he said it is “the future of currency,” adding that it will “take over the world.”
Related Articles: CFTC Clears Way For Offshore Crypto Exchanges To Service US Investors 21Shares Files For Spot SEI ETF, Joining 92 Crypto ETF Pipeline Ethereum NFT Project Doodles Joins Kaito AI For An NFT Leaderboard Best Wallet - Diversify Your Crypto Portfolio
Our Rating
Easy to Use, Feature-Driven Crypto Wallet Get Early Access to Upcoming Token ICOs Multi-Chain, Multi-Wallet, Non-Custodial Now On App Store, Google Play Stake To Earn Native Token $BEST 250,000+ Monthly Active Users
Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage
South Korea's KOSPI index climbs back above the 9,000 mark, up 6.25% on the day.
According to Bitget data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has returned to the 9,000 level, gaining 6.25% on the day.
5 minutes ago
Silver plunged 6% intraday, breaching the defense of long positions, as a smart money entity reaped $2.16 million in shorting profits.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, the Silver (SILVER) contract on Hyperliquid is currently priced at $56.78, down 6.34% over 24 hours, with a trading volume of $263 million, ranking first in the precious metals sector. Driven by gold prices falling below $4,000 and safe-haven funds flowing back into chip stocks, short sellers have reaped significant profits. Notably, smart money address 0x49e has been shorting Silver on 3x leverage since April 29 at a high of $78.79, holding a position worth $5.77 million, and has already booked a precise profit of $2.16 million (+81%). On-chain Silver whales are overall bearish: the nominal position size of short sellers is approximately 1.5 times that of long positions. The average entry price for short positions is around $65.05, and the current price is 12.7% lower than this level. Long positions are overall trapped, with an average entry price of about $59.75, roughly 5% above the current price. Current short sellers have sufficient safety margins: the nearest short liquidation line stands at $77.18, some 36% above the current price, meaning short sellers face almost no liquidation pressure. Address: 0xe9ffe7698f46f96f980f2877e18c43f5b4165903-HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your TG group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain updates.
5 minutes ago
China's Supreme People's Procuratorate announced a major drug-related money laundering case: Li Moubo laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after combined punishment for multiple crimes.
On June 25, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference. Miao Shengming, SPP’s deputy procurator-general, stated that procuratorial organs are thoroughly investigating both self-money laundering and third-party money laundering crimes, and vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets to ensure full coverage in the investigation and punishment of drug-related money laundering offenses. From January 2025 to May 2026, procuratorial bodies nationwide prosecuted more than 1,200 individuals for drug-related money laundering crimes. A notable example is the major cross-border case of drug smuggling, trafficking, transportation and money laundering involving Li Moubo and others, which was supervised by the SPP and handled by Chongqing’s procuratorial organs. Li laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after receiving combined punishment for multiple crimes in accordance with the law. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 minutes ago
Quarterly crypto options expiry will take place tomorrow, with $11.32 billion in BTC and ETH options set to settle.
Crypto options are set for their quarterly expiration and settlement tomorrow. Data from crypto derivatives platform Deribit shows that crypto options with a total notional value of $11.32 billion will expire, with details as follows: · BTC options have a notional value of $9.68 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.75, and a max pain point of $72,000; · ETH options carry a notional value of $1.64 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.56, and a max pain point of $2,000.
5 minutes ago
A crypto whale liquidated all 27,585 ETH after lying dormant for 7 years, booking a profit of $39.1 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, whale address 0x096, which had remained dormant for seven years, sold all 27,585 ETH at an average price of $1,625, obtaining 44.84 million USDS and locking in a profit of $39.1 million.
5 minutes ago
Multiple investment banks raise Micron Technology’s price targets, with JPMorgan Chase lifting its target from $550 to $1,540.
Due to Micron Technology (MU)'s financial results and market expectations, multiple investment banks have raised the chipmaker's price targets. JPMorgan Chase lifted Micron's price target from $550 to $1,540; D.A. Davidson raised its target from $1,500 to $2,000; and H.C. Wainwright hiked its target from $1,750 to $2,000.
South Korea's KOSPI index climbs back above the 9,000 mark, up 6.25% on the day.
According to Bitget data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has returned to the 9,000 level, gaining 6.25% on the day.
5 minutes ago
Silver plunged 6% intraday, breaching the defense of long positions, as a smart money entity reaped $2.16 million in shorting profits.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, the Silver (SILVER) contract on Hyperliquid is currently priced at $56.78, down 6.34% over 24 hours, with a trading volume of $263 million, ranking first in the precious metals sector. Driven by gold prices falling below $4,000 and safe-haven funds flowing back into chip stocks, short sellers have reaped significant profits. Notably, smart money address 0x49e has been shorting Silver on 3x leverage since April 29 at a high of $78.79, holding a position worth $5.77 million, and has already booked a precise profit of $2.16 million (+81%). On-chain Silver whales are overall bearish: the nominal position size of short sellers is approximately 1.5 times that of long positions. The average entry price for short positions is around $65.05, and the current price is 12.7% lower than this level. Long positions are overall trapped, with an average entry price of about $59.75, roughly 5% above the current price. Current short sellers have sufficient safety margins: the nearest short liquidation line stands at $77.18, some 36% above the current price, meaning short sellers face almost no liquidation pressure. Address: 0xe9ffe7698f46f96f980f2877e18c43f5b4165903-HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your TG group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain updates.
5 minutes ago
China's Supreme People's Procuratorate announced a major drug-related money laundering case: Li Moubo laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after combined punishment for multiple crimes.
On June 25, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference. Miao Shengming, SPP’s deputy procurator-general, stated that procuratorial organs are thoroughly investigating both self-money laundering and third-party money laundering crimes, and vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets to ensure full coverage in the investigation and punishment of drug-related money laundering offenses. From January 2025 to May 2026, procuratorial bodies nationwide prosecuted more than 1,200 individuals for drug-related money laundering crimes. A notable example is the major cross-border case of drug smuggling, trafficking, transportation and money laundering involving Li Moubo and others, which was supervised by the SPP and handled by Chongqing’s procuratorial organs. Li laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after receiving combined punishment for multiple crimes in accordance with the law. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 minutes ago
Quarterly crypto options expiry will take place tomorrow, with $11.32 billion in BTC and ETH options set to settle.
Crypto options are set for their quarterly expiration and settlement tomorrow. Data from crypto derivatives platform Deribit shows that crypto options with a total notional value of $11.32 billion will expire, with details as follows: · BTC options have a notional value of $9.68 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.75, and a max pain point of $72,000; · ETH options carry a notional value of $1.64 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.56, and a max pain point of $2,000.
5 minutes ago
A crypto whale liquidated all 27,585 ETH after lying dormant for 7 years, booking a profit of $39.1 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, whale address 0x096, which had remained dormant for seven years, sold all 27,585 ETH at an average price of $1,625, obtaining 44.84 million USDS and locking in a profit of $39.1 million.
5 minutes ago
Multiple investment banks raise Micron Technology’s price targets, with JPMorgan Chase lifting its target from $550 to $1,540.
Due to Micron Technology (MU)'s financial results and market expectations, multiple investment banks have raised the chipmaker's price targets. JPMorgan Chase lifted Micron's price target from $550 to $1,540; D.A. Davidson raised its target from $1,500 to $2,000; and H.C. Wainwright hiked its target from $1,750 to $2,000.
South Korea's KOSPI index climbs back above the 9,000 mark, up 6.25% on the day.
According to Bitget data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has returned to the 9,000 level, gaining 6.25% on the day.
5 minutes ago
Silver plunged 6% intraday, breaching the defense of long positions, as a smart money entity reaped $2.16 million in shorting profits.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, the Silver (SILVER) contract on Hyperliquid is currently priced at $56.78, down 6.34% over 24 hours, with a trading volume of $263 million, ranking first in the precious metals sector. Driven by gold prices falling below $4,000 and safe-haven funds flowing back into chip stocks, short sellers have reaped significant profits. Notably, smart money address 0x49e has been shorting Silver on 3x leverage since April 29 at a high of $78.79, holding a position worth $5.77 million, and has already booked a precise profit of $2.16 million (+81%). On-chain Silver whales are overall bearish: the nominal position size of short sellers is approximately 1.5 times that of long positions. The average entry price for short positions is around $65.05, and the current price is 12.7% lower than this level. Long positions are overall trapped, with an average entry price of about $59.75, roughly 5% above the current price. Current short sellers have sufficient safety margins: the nearest short liquidation line stands at $77.18, some 36% above the current price, meaning short sellers face almost no liquidation pressure. Address: 0xe9ffe7698f46f96f980f2877e18c43f5b4165903-HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your TG group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain updates.
5 minutes ago
China's Supreme People's Procuratorate announced a major drug-related money laundering case: Li Moubo laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after combined punishment for multiple crimes.
On June 25, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference. Miao Shengming, SPP’s deputy procurator-general, stated that procuratorial organs are thoroughly investigating both self-money laundering and third-party money laundering crimes, and vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets to ensure full coverage in the investigation and punishment of drug-related money laundering offenses. From January 2025 to May 2026, procuratorial bodies nationwide prosecuted more than 1,200 individuals for drug-related money laundering crimes. A notable example is the major cross-border case of drug smuggling, trafficking, transportation and money laundering involving Li Moubo and others, which was supervised by the SPP and handled by Chongqing’s procuratorial organs. Li laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after receiving combined punishment for multiple crimes in accordance with the law. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 minutes ago
Quarterly crypto options expiry will take place tomorrow, with $11.32 billion in BTC and ETH options set to settle.
Crypto options are set for their quarterly expiration and settlement tomorrow. Data from crypto derivatives platform Deribit shows that crypto options with a total notional value of $11.32 billion will expire, with details as follows: · BTC options have a notional value of $9.68 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.75, and a max pain point of $72,000; · ETH options carry a notional value of $1.64 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.56, and a max pain point of $2,000.
5 minutes ago
A crypto whale liquidated all 27,585 ETH after lying dormant for 7 years, booking a profit of $39.1 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, whale address 0x096, which had remained dormant for seven years, sold all 27,585 ETH at an average price of $1,625, obtaining 44.84 million USDS and locking in a profit of $39.1 million.
5 minutes ago
Multiple investment banks raise Micron Technology’s price targets, with JPMorgan Chase lifting its target from $550 to $1,540.
Due to Micron Technology (MU)'s financial results and market expectations, multiple investment banks have raised the chipmaker's price targets. JPMorgan Chase lifted Micron's price target from $550 to $1,540; D.A. Davidson raised its target from $1,500 to $2,000; and H.C. Wainwright hiked its target from $1,750 to $2,000.
South Korea's KOSPI index climbs back above the 9,000 mark, up 6.25% on the day.
According to Bitget data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has returned to the 9,000 level, gaining 6.25% on the day.
5 minutes ago
Silver plunged 6% intraday, breaching the defense of long positions, as a smart money entity reaped $2.16 million in shorting profits.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, the Silver (SILVER) contract on Hyperliquid is currently priced at $56.78, down 6.34% over 24 hours, with a trading volume of $263 million, ranking first in the precious metals sector. Driven by gold prices falling below $4,000 and safe-haven funds flowing back into chip stocks, short sellers have reaped significant profits. Notably, smart money address 0x49e has been shorting Silver on 3x leverage since April 29 at a high of $78.79, holding a position worth $5.77 million, and has already booked a precise profit of $2.16 million (+81%). On-chain Silver whales are overall bearish: the nominal position size of short sellers is approximately 1.5 times that of long positions. The average entry price for short positions is around $65.05, and the current price is 12.7% lower than this level. Long positions are overall trapped, with an average entry price of about $59.75, roughly 5% above the current price. Current short sellers have sufficient safety margins: the nearest short liquidation line stands at $77.18, some 36% above the current price, meaning short sellers face almost no liquidation pressure. Address: 0xe9ffe7698f46f96f980f2877e18c43f5b4165903-HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your TG group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain updates.
5 minutes ago
China's Supreme People's Procuratorate announced a major drug-related money laundering case: Li Moubo laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after combined punishment for multiple crimes.
On June 25, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference. Miao Shengming, SPP’s deputy procurator-general, stated that procuratorial organs are thoroughly investigating both self-money laundering and third-party money laundering crimes, and vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets to ensure full coverage in the investigation and punishment of drug-related money laundering offenses. From January 2025 to May 2026, procuratorial bodies nationwide prosecuted more than 1,200 individuals for drug-related money laundering crimes. A notable example is the major cross-border case of drug smuggling, trafficking, transportation and money laundering involving Li Moubo and others, which was supervised by the SPP and handled by Chongqing’s procuratorial organs. Li laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after receiving combined punishment for multiple crimes in accordance with the law. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 minutes ago
Quarterly crypto options expiry will take place tomorrow, with $11.32 billion in BTC and ETH options set to settle.
Crypto options are set for their quarterly expiration and settlement tomorrow. Data from crypto derivatives platform Deribit shows that crypto options with a total notional value of $11.32 billion will expire, with details as follows: · BTC options have a notional value of $9.68 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.75, and a max pain point of $72,000; · ETH options carry a notional value of $1.64 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.56, and a max pain point of $2,000.
5 minutes ago
A crypto whale liquidated all 27,585 ETH after lying dormant for 7 years, booking a profit of $39.1 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, whale address 0x096, which had remained dormant for seven years, sold all 27,585 ETH at an average price of $1,625, obtaining 44.84 million USDS and locking in a profit of $39.1 million.
5 minutes ago
Multiple investment banks raise Micron Technology’s price targets, with JPMorgan Chase lifting its target from $550 to $1,540.
Due to Micron Technology (MU)'s financial results and market expectations, multiple investment banks have raised the chipmaker's price targets. JPMorgan Chase lifted Micron's price target from $550 to $1,540; D.A. Davidson raised its target from $1,500 to $2,000; and H.C. Wainwright hiked its target from $1,750 to $2,000.
South Korea's KOSPI index climbs back above the 9,000 mark, up 6.25% on the day.
According to Bitget data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has returned to the 9,000 level, gaining 6.25% on the day.
5 minutes ago
Silver plunged 6% intraday, breaching the defense of long positions, as a smart money entity reaped $2.16 million in shorting profits.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, the Silver (SILVER) contract on Hyperliquid is currently priced at $56.78, down 6.34% over 24 hours, with a trading volume of $263 million, ranking first in the precious metals sector. Driven by gold prices falling below $4,000 and safe-haven funds flowing back into chip stocks, short sellers have reaped significant profits. Notably, smart money address 0x49e has been shorting Silver on 3x leverage since April 29 at a high of $78.79, holding a position worth $5.77 million, and has already booked a precise profit of $2.16 million (+81%). On-chain Silver whales are overall bearish: the nominal position size of short sellers is approximately 1.5 times that of long positions. The average entry price for short positions is around $65.05, and the current price is 12.7% lower than this level. Long positions are overall trapped, with an average entry price of about $59.75, roughly 5% above the current price. Current short sellers have sufficient safety margins: the nearest short liquidation line stands at $77.18, some 36% above the current price, meaning short sellers face almost no liquidation pressure. Address: 0xe9ffe7698f46f96f980f2877e18c43f5b4165903-HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your TG group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain updates.
5 minutes ago
China's Supreme People's Procuratorate announced a major drug-related money laundering case: Li Moubo laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after combined punishment for multiple crimes.
On June 25, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference. Miao Shengming, SPP’s deputy procurator-general, stated that procuratorial organs are thoroughly investigating both self-money laundering and third-party money laundering crimes, and vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets to ensure full coverage in the investigation and punishment of drug-related money laundering offenses. From January 2025 to May 2026, procuratorial bodies nationwide prosecuted more than 1,200 individuals for drug-related money laundering crimes. A notable example is the major cross-border case of drug smuggling, trafficking, transportation and money laundering involving Li Moubo and others, which was supervised by the SPP and handled by Chongqing’s procuratorial organs. Li laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after receiving combined punishment for multiple crimes in accordance with the law. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 minutes ago
Quarterly crypto options expiry will take place tomorrow, with $11.32 billion in BTC and ETH options set to settle.
Crypto options are set for their quarterly expiration and settlement tomorrow. Data from crypto derivatives platform Deribit shows that crypto options with a total notional value of $11.32 billion will expire, with details as follows: · BTC options have a notional value of $9.68 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.75, and a max pain point of $72,000; · ETH options carry a notional value of $1.64 billion, a put/call ratio of 0.56, and a max pain point of $2,000.
5 minutes ago
A crypto whale liquidated all 27,585 ETH after lying dormant for 7 years, booking a profit of $39.1 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, whale address 0x096, which had remained dormant for seven years, sold all 27,585 ETH at an average price of $1,625, obtaining 44.84 million USDS and locking in a profit of $39.1 million.
5 minutes ago
Multiple investment banks raise Micron Technology’s price targets, with JPMorgan Chase lifting its target from $550 to $1,540.
Due to Micron Technology (MU)'s financial results and market expectations, multiple investment banks have raised the chipmaker's price targets. JPMorgan Chase lifted Micron's price target from $550 to $1,540; D.A. Davidson raised its target from $1,500 to $2,000; and H.C. Wainwright hiked its target from $1,750 to $2,000.
BlackRock’s 2026 Thematic Outlook positions Ethereum as core financial infrastructure rather than a speculative asset. The report frames the network as a potential “toll road” for tokenized assets—capturing value through issuance, settlement, and transaction fees as real-world assets move onchain. For investors, the central question is whether growth in tokenization activity can translate into durable economic demand for ETH.
In brief BlackRock positions Ethereum as tokenization infrastructure, but avoids linking market share directly to ETH price. Rollups now secure most activity and value, weakening assumptions that tokenization growth boosts ETH fee demand. Filtered stablecoin data shows headline volumes overstate real usage, reshaping how investors assess onchain economics. Multi-chain tokenization via BlackRock’s BUIDL shifts focus from dominance to settlement paths, fees, and demand. According to BlackRock, more than 65% of tokenized assets currently reside on Ethereum. This makes the network the leading base layer for tokenization today. However, the report stops short of drawing a direct link between this share and ETH’s price performance.
Instead, it emphasizes where economic activity ultimately settles and which networks capture fees as tokenized cash and securities circulate across blockchains.
Stablecoin data is critical to that analysis. BlackRock notes that transaction volumes in its materials are adjusted to remove “inorganic activity,” such as bot-driven transfers. The firm references Coin Metrics and Allium data presented through Visa’s Onchain Analytics dashboard.
This filtering approach highlights a key limitation of raw onchain metrics: headline transfer volumes can significantly overstate real economic use, particularly when investors attempt to infer throughput or fee generation.
Ethereum’s current market share should be viewed as a snapshot, not a permanent outcome. Data from late January shows meaningful variation depending on timing and methodology. RWA.xyz’s directory view lists Ethereum with a 59.84% share of tokenized real-world assets, representing roughly $12.8 billion in value as of Jan. 22.
A separate networks view from the same platform shows Ethereum leading by value as well, with approximately $13.43 billion excluding stablecoins, based on data time-stamped around Jan. 21.
The gap between these figures and BlackRock’s early January estimate underscores how quickly tokenization data can shift. Issuance is expanding across multiple chains, while reporting windows and asset classifications change from week to week.
Tokenization Growth Doesn’t Guarantee ETH Fees as Rollups Take Center Stage For ETH holders, institutional adoption alone is not the deciding factor. What matters is whether tokenization activity settles in ways that generate demand for ETH through fees or collateral.
BlackRock’s thesis favors Ethereum as the base settlement layer for tokenized assets. That role, however, becomes more complex as execution increasingly moves off the main chain. Rollups already secure large pools of value while handling most user activity.
According to L2BEAT, Arbitrum One secures approximately $17.52 billion, and Base about $12.94 billion. Meanwhile, OP Mainnet holds around $2.33 billion, with all three classified as Stage 1 rollups.
This rollup-centric structure complicates the “toll road” analogy in several ways:
Ethereum can remain the final settlement and security layer even if users rarely transact on L1. Fee payment assets vary by rollup, affecting how much value flows back to ETH. Execution costs increasingly accrue to L2s, shifting where day-to-day activity appears. Security is inherited from Ethereum, but revenue capture is not guaranteed. Growth in rollup TVL does not automatically translate into higher L1 fee revenue. Tokenized cash is a potential driver of future transaction volume. Citi’s stablecoin report projects issuance reaching $1.9 trillion by 2030 in a base case and $4.0 trillion in a bull case. Assuming a 50x velocity, Citi estimates annual transaction activity between $100 trillion and $200 trillion. At that scale, even small shifts in settlement share across networks could have meaningful economic implications.
BlackRock and Visa Cast Doubt on Raw Stablecoin Transfer Metrics As volumes grow, measurement becomes increasingly important. Visa has argued that stablecoin transfer data contains substantial “noise.”
In one example, Visa found that reported 30-day stablecoin transfer volume fell from $3.9 trillion to $817.5 billion after excluding inorganic activity. BlackRock’s reliance on similar filtering methods reinforces its focus on economically meaningful usage rather than headline flow metrics.
If the “toll road” model depends on settlement, then organic demand that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere becomes the key variable. Multi-chain product design weakens any simple connection between tokenization growth and ETH demand.
Multi-Chain Tokenization Reshapes Ethereum’s Role as Settlement Layer BlackRock’s tokenized fund, BUIDL, already operates across seven blockchains, with cross-chain interoperability provided by Wormhole. This architecture allows other chains to function as distribution and execution layers, even if Ethereum retains an advantage in settlement credibility or issuance value.
Several dynamics now shape how investors interpret tokenization data:
Asset issuance spreading across multiple L1s and rollups. Stablecoin metrics increasingly adjusted to remove bot activity. Rollups altering where fees are paid relative to where security resides. Institutional products reducing reliance on any single platform. Settlement location becoming more important than raw transaction volume. Questions have also emerged around whether institutional tokenization will converge on a single ledger. During Davos week, that idea circulated online following remarks attributed to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. However, World Economic Forum materials released this month emphasize tokenization benefits such as fractional ownership and faster settlement without endorsing the view that all assets will ultimately settle on one blockchain.
Ethereum’s unresolved issue is whether neutrality and decentralization can be maintained as regulated tokenization scales. Claims of transparency depend on resistance to unilateral change and on settlement finality that downstream layers rely on.
Current data shows rollups expanding under Ethereum’s security umbrella. At the same time, BUIDL’s multi-chain rollout suggests that major issuers are actively hedging against dependence on a single platform.
BlackRock’s “toll road” framing established a clear market-share benchmark above 65% earlier this year. By late January, however, RWA dashboards and new product launches suggested that the near-term debate is less about dominance. Instead, it was more about settlement paths, fee capture, and how organic usage is measured across the tokenized asset ecosystem.
Maximize your Cointribune experience with our "Read to Earn" program! For every article you read, earn points and access exclusive rewards. Sign up now and start earning benefits.
Join the program
A
A
Lien copié
James G.
James Godstime is a crypto journalist and market analyst with over three years of experience in crypto, Web3, and finance. He simplifies complex and technical ideas to engage readers. Outside of work, he enjoys football and tennis, which he follows passionately.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
