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.
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