Blur, once the leading marketplace by trading volume in the Ethereum NFT market, has announced that it will close its website on November 12, 2026. Its NFT-backed lending service, Blend, will stop matching new loans on the same date. The decision follows a decline of more than 99.5% in Blur’s monthly trading volume compared with March 2023.
In its October 12 announcement, the Blur team said the shutdown applies to the user interface. Its smart contracts will continue operating on Ethereum, while BLUR holders will retain governance authority over the protocol’s trading fee mechanism.
November 12 deadline for Blur and Blend users
Under the announced schedule, users will no longer be able to trade NFTs through Blur’s official web interface starting November 12. However, the platform’s onchain infrastructure will remain operational.
This distinction defines the scope of the shutdown. The website users rely on to carry out transactions will go offline, while the smart contracts executing those transactions on Ethereum will remain in place.
Blend users also face a repayment deadline for outstanding loans. Borrowers must repay their loans by November 12; those who fail to do so could default.
Blur plans to provide a separate tool after that date to allow users to withdraw assets from Blend. As new loan matching ends, the platform will therefore focus on winding down existing positions and facilitating withdrawals.
The “fee switch,” which will remain under BLUR holders’ control, is the governance mechanism that determines whether the protocol charges trading fees. Retaining that authority does not mean fees will automatically take effect or that token holders will receive revenue distributions following the shutdown.
Monthly trading volume fell from $1.43 billion to below $7 million
Launched in 2022, Blur grew rapidly with tools aimed at professional NFT traders. Its fast trading experience, zero marketplace fees and token rewards helped the platform gain market share against OpenSea.
According to DefiLlama data, Blur accounted for more than 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume in March 2023. Trading volume on the platform reached approximately $1.43 billion that month.
By March 2026, however, monthly volume had fallen below $7 million. The difference between the two periods represents a contraction of more than 99.5%.
The reward programs that helped drive the platform’s growth also attracted criticism over time. Critics argued that the incentives encouraged speculative trading and put pressure on the royalties NFT creators received from secondary sales.
However, total trading volume alone does not reveal why users bought and sold NFTs. These figures therefore cannot establish how much activity reflected demand from collectors and how much came from traders pursuing token rewards.
Billions in trading volume failed to generate trading fee revenue
Despite its high trading volume, Blur’s free trading model generated no marketplace commission revenue. The cited Token Terminal data shows zero protocol revenue over the past three years.
However, this metric has a limited scope. It does not establish whether Blur earned revenue from its lending service or other activities.
The platform’s website also highlights its zero marketplace fee model and more than $7.4 billion in lifetime trading volume. Blur has not directly attributed its shutdown decision to operating losses in its public announcement.
A second shutdown announcement from the same team after Blast
Blur’s decision followed a shutdown announcement from another project linked to the same entrepreneur. Blast, the Ethereum scaling network founded by Tieshun Roquerre, known as “Pacman,” announced on October 2 that it would wind down operations.
Blast once attracted more than $2 billion in assets, but that figure had fallen to approximately $32 million by the time of the shutdown announcement. Its developers said the cost of operating the network exceeded the revenue it generated.
The two projects linked to Roquerre therefore announced their shutdown schedules just ten days apart. Blast users have until October 26 to withdraw assets through the standard interface, while the changes at Blur and Blend will take effect on November 12.
The announcement also triggered a sharp decline in the price of BLUR. The token was trading at approximately $0.012 after falling more than 30%.
