Blur Is Shutting Down: Biggest Ethereum NFT Marketplace Closes Its Website in November

TLDR

• Blur, once the largest Ethereum NFT marketplace, will close its website on Nov. 12.
• Monthly trading volume fell from about $1.43 billion in March 2023 to under $7 million in March 2026.
• The Blend lending service will stop matching new loans on Nov. 12, and borrowers must repay or default by then.
• The BLUR token dropped more than 20% to about $0.015 after the news.
• The announcement comes ten days after sister project Blast said it would shut down.

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Blur, once the largest marketplace for Ethereum NFTs, will shut down its website on Nov. 12. The company announced the move on Monday after trading activity fell more than 99% from its peak.

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, its NFT lending service, will stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers must repay their loans or let them default by then.

Blur says it will offer a tool after the deadline so users can withdraw their assets from Blend.

What Happens to the Protocol

The shutdown does not remove Blur from the blockchain. Its smart contracts will keep running on Ethereum.

BLUR tokenholders will keep control of the fee switch. This lets them vote on whether the marketplace should charge trading fees.

The news comes ten days after Blast announced it would wind down. Blast is an Ethereum scaling network created by Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre, who also founded Blur.

Blast once held more than $2 billion in assets, partly because of rewards for depositors. That figure fell to about $32 million before the closure was announced. Developers said the network cost more to run than it earned.

Abstract, an Ethereum layer 2 network backed by Pudgy Penguins, has also announced a shutdown.

How Blur Rose and Fell

Blur launched in 2022 and challenged OpenSea, then the market leader. It offered faster trades, low fees and token rewards for professional traders.

By March 2023, Blur held more than 70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume. Monthly volume reached about $1.43 billion, according to DefiLlama.

By March 2026, monthly volume had dropped below $7 million. That is a decline of more than 99.5%.

Blur charged traders no marketplace fees. Token Terminal shows $0 in protocol revenue over the past three years. The data does not show whether Blur earned money from lending or other work.

The platform’s reward programs drew criticism. Critics said they encouraged airdrop farming and suspected wash trading. They also said its low royalty policy hurt creators, including Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Unlike Blast, Blur has not blamed its shutdown on operating losses. Its website still lists zero marketplace fees and more than $7.4 billion in lifetime trading volume.

The BLUR token fell more than 20% after the announcement. It traded near $0.015, giving it a market value of about $44 million. It traded above $5 in early 2023.

Blast users have until Oct. 26 to withdraw funds through the network’s regular interface. Blur’s website closes on Nov. 12.