Has Blur already displaced OpenSea as the most used NFT marketplace? What data says on OpenSea VS Blur

The battle for the world’s topmost non-fungible token marketplace has always had a clear winner, OpenSea. For the longest time, one of the few marketplaces that could match its volumes was LooksRare, but even that debate has been settled in favour of OpenSea.

However, a new entrant called Blur changed the landscape just a few months after its launch. Blur’s volumes have outmatched those of OpenSea in recent times, making a strong case for becoming the NFT marketplace leader. But what does data say? Has Blur already passed its predecessor or does OpenSea still have the bragging rights? Let’s find out.

Launched in October 2022, Blur is a non-fungible token marketplace that operates on the Ethereum mainnet. In other words, the platform enables one to mint, buy and sell NFTs, all while charging zero fees.

But where Blur truly stands apart from its competition is through the assistance it provides to advanced and professional NFT traders. Some of Blur’s notable features include a batch shelf and floor-sweeping transactions, allowing users to create multiple NFTs at once rather than minting them one by one.

Portfolio analytical tools, marketplace aggregation, and sweeping and sniping tools are some other ways through which Blur attracts sophisticated traders.

The platform made headlines in February 2023 after its much-anticipated native token, BLUR, debuted on the market. Around 12 percent of the coin’s circulating supply (maximum supply of $3 billion) was airdropped to its users, some of which were worth millions of dollars.

Currently, BLUR’s market cap is around $233 million, making it among the top largest 150 cryptocurrencies in the world.

From a utility perspective, the ERC-20 governance token (BLUR) gives voting rights to holders, making its launch a significant development for Blur’s push toward decentralization.

When a new player enters the market, its operations are typically shaped by what the market leader has to offer. However, quite the opposite happened once Blur began to make a name for itself late last year.

During the time, market leader OpenSea adopted several measures to deal with the Blur threat. Initially, OpenSea banned NFT collections minted onto the platform to appear on Blur since the latter did not enforce creator royalties on its users. In simpler words, Blur gives its users the choice of whether or not they wish to pay royalty-related fees.

OpenSea had to alter its strategy and adopt a zero-fee model with optional creator royalties to match Blur.

A few weeks following its launch, Blur had already begun to eat into the market share of its peers. As per CoinGecko, Blur’s total trade volume of $23.39 million soon after its launch gave it a market share of 4.2 percent. However, just two months down the line, Blur’s share of the pie rose to 23.5 percent, displacing Magic Eden as the world’s second-largest NFT marketplace.

The dynamics continued to change in favour of Blur even in 2023. As per CoinGecko, Blur now has a 56.8 percent market share compared to OpenSea’s share of 36.50 percent, making it the leader in the NFT marketplace segment.

Yes, in hindsight, you can argue that Blur is the market leader simply based on its market share. However, that’s just one side of the story. For the sake of this argument, let’s divide the battle between OpenSea and Blur into two segments. Total users and trade volume over the short term against all-time total users and trade volume. This will help level the playing field.

According to data tracker DappRadar, Blur wins on most counts over the short term. Over the 30-day time frame, Blur’s average sales price for NFTs came in at nearly $2,500, amounting to a volume of $443.15 million.

In comparison, OpenSea’s 30-day figures showed an average sales price of $109, along with a trading volume of $186 million. Even on the weekly and daily timeframes, Blur emerged as the clear winner with respect to volumes and average sales price.

Meanwhile, the number of active traders on Blur is significantly lower than that of OpenSea, with 38,300 active traders in the last 30 days compared to 382,000 on OpenSea.

However, most of these figures change drastically when switching over to the all-time timeframe. OpenSea’s all-time traders came in at around 4.4 million, compared to just 256,350 on Blur. Furthermore, the all-time trade volume of $35.58 billion on OpenSea is significantly higher than $4.69 billion on Blur.

Despite having fewer traders than OpenSea in the short run, it is evident that Blur’s traders are making more high-value trades on the platform than OpenSea traders. However, OpenSea still boasts a higher all-time trade volume and user figures due to its early mover’s advantage. Simply put, Blur dominates the battle over the short-term but OpenSea maintains its legacy over a larger timeframe.

Another aspect to consider here is Blur’s airdrop. In essence, the platform is paying users to increase volume, which, while effective in the short run, may prove fruitless if users do not stick around.

The winner between OpenSea and Blur depends on what timeframes and metrics you are looking at. All in all, the answer to the OpenSea VS Blur debate is subjective. What would decide this battle is how both platforms manage to find new revenue streams over the coming years, especially now that they are operating on zero-fees models.