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NFT marketplace Blur has overtaken leader OpenSea, with the recent resurgence in the cryptocurrency markets. Recent research notes that Blur’s market share has surpassed 53%.
Delphi Digital noted in its research that Blur dethroned the marketplace leader on the back of its airdrop. The airdrop is said to have powered an ‘incentive flywheel’ leading to ‘real network effects.’
Blur Gains With Airdrops
In October 2022, Blur.io, an NFT marketplace and aggregator, was introduced with support from Paradigm. Last week, it launched its native BLUR token with a massive airdrop. The token has gained close to 50% in the past week but has lost over 22% in 24 hours.
On CoinGecko, the native token is trading between $0.924 and $1.23.
According to Delphi, the platform managed to dominate a 53% NFT marketplace share within a few months of launch with the help of $BLUR airdrops.
Delphi also credits the increased adoption to a point-based distribution methodology, which rewards users for filling the liquidity pool order book. It noted, “Each order is awarded a “risk” score which rewards higher bids & lower asks via airdrops. This mechanism incentivizes liquidity to fill Blur’s liquidity pool orderbooks.”
The crypto research firm also noted Blur’s trade values compared to OpenSea. Delphi highlights, “Blur executes a lot of high value trades with an average NFT sale price of $1,365 vs. OpenSea’s $351.”
Can OpenSea Regain the Advantage?
Interestingly, OpenSea has switched to optional creator earnings and lowered its marketplace fees to 0% in reaction to the competition.
Per DappRadar, Blur clocked a trading volume of $77.33M with 42,170 transactions on Feb. 21. OpenSea, on the other hand, recorded 53,340 transactions with volumes of just $14.63M.
Meanwhile, another round of Blur airdrop could prove beneficial for the platform. Blur revealed on Feb. 21 that it will soon airdrop more tokens valued at $300 million to users in ‘Season 2.’
It noted, “Listing rewards will be as large as bidding rewards. Max listing points = listings x loyalty. “
That said, the timing of the airdrop can potentially work in the platform’s favor.
The global cryptocurrency market cap on CoinGecko has surpassed $1.14 trillion today. Although there has been a negative move in the last day, the market has recovered from the severe decline that followed the FTX collapse.