Blur Challenges OpenSea With Zero-Fee NFT Marketplace, Pushes February Trading Volumes To $2B

The non-fungible token (NFT) market is seeing a surge in trading volumes, with February recording the highest numbers since May 2022, according to DappRadar's latest industry report.

What Happened: The data platform revealed NFT trading volumes reached $2 billion, with much of the growth attributable to the popularity of the zero-fee marketplace Blur BLUR/USD.

Despite NFT sales dropping by 32% from January, trading volume increased by 120%. This can be attributed to incentivized trades ahead of Blur's native token airdrop in mid-February.

While Blur has been challenging historically leading NFT marketplace OpenSea and taking over market share, DappRadar's blockchain research analyst, Sara Gherghelas, believed the marketplace isn't attracting new traders.

OpenSea is aimed toward retail traders, while Blur's focus on professional traders may be driving trading volumes without bringing in new buyers.

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Gherghelas told Coindesk, "Blur doesn't bring adoption. As of right now, they are just bringing hype with the token launch, but it's impressive what they're doing."

Why It Matters: Since Blur's launch in October 2022, it had targeted large-scale NFT traders looking for zero fees, incentivizing them to transact on the platform with the promise of receiving its native token BLUR ahead of the token's release in February 2023.

Two days after the token's launch, Blur overtook OpenSea in trading volume, and it has since been challenging the leading marketplace's status.

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Photo: Thapana_Studio via Shutterstock