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The BLUR token, the crypto of the NFT aggregator Blur, was launched on February 14, 2023, exactly one week ago.
The immediate boom of the Blur crypto
The launch took place on Huobi, with the BLUR/USDT exchange pair.
The initial price was $0.01 but on the day of the launch it went up to $9.90, which is currently the all-time high.
Very likely both prices were excessive, one too low and one too high, so much so that already the next day the range narrowed quite a bit. Moreover, starting on 16 February it began to lateralize around $1, so that even today its price is about $1.2.
In other words, on the very day of its launch it registered an incredible +98,000%, but this lasted for a very short time, followed by an almost instantaneous -90%. Taking as a reference the value around which the price then lateralized in the following days, the gain over the launch price was about +10,000%.
However, it is worth mentioning that the initial boom lasted less than an hour, so it was almost impossible to actually buy it at $0.01.
Indeed, just over an hour after listing its price was $0.7, so it would be best to take this as a benchmark.
The declining trading volumes on the crypto BLUR
Moreover, the very brief initial boom occurred with $2 million in trading volumes on Huobi, while the following -90% with $5 million.
In addition, daily trading volumes for now have been steadily shrinking day by day, as after $31.5 million on the debut day they dropped to $24.5 million the following day, and then dropped to $10 million yesterday.
Meanwhile, the ERC-20 token has also been listed on other exchanges alongside Huobi. It has not yet arrived on Binance, and for now the largest trading volumes are on OKX.
On its debut day, trading volumes on OKX were already much higher than on Huobi (102 million versus 2), peaking the next day with $218 million in trades. Yesterday they were down to 75.
The second largest exchange by trading volume on BLUR is Kucoin, with $25 million on debut, and a peak of $43 million on 16 February. It is now down to $22 million.
It is worth noting that the decreasing volumes on the exchanges suggest that market makers anticipated that most of the trading would occur in the initial days. Nonetheless, trading on Coinbase increased in the following days, suggesting that the composition of BLUR investors and speculators is changing.
Blur NFT
Blur is an NFT aggregator with significant NFT trading volumes. Despite the fact that its token was launched only last week, the platform has actually been in existence for some time.
The most trending NFT collection on Blur is Bored Ape Yacht Club, but it is not the most traded. The most traded is Otherdeed, followed by Mutant Yacht Club.
Among those most popular on the platform is also Clone X, while the one that is performing best in terms of prices is Opepen Edition.
Blur bills itself as “the fastest NFT marketplace,” with the slogan “Execute trades faster and make more money on Blur.”
It therefore seems more aimed at speculators than artists, so much so that it has no fees on trades. For now it claims to have nearly 150,000 users.
During the so-called “Season 1” 360 million BLUR tokens were distributed to the community out of the existing 388 million, and now Season 2 has begun.
The situation in the crypto markets
BLUR’s debut on the crypto markets has been associated with other interesting movements over the past seven days.
One of the most interesting is the rising prices of some major cryptocurrencies, primarily BTC and ETH, just as several government authorities have initiated some tough regulatory actions.
For example, the SEC has formally charged Terra’s founder, Do Kwon, with fraud, and has proposed new custody rules that could make it more difficult for investment firms to work with crypto companies.
In other words right now it really seems that crypto markets want to give a clear signal of strength and resilience after all that has happened in the past year.
For example, Coinbase’s trading volume is still higher than Uniswap’s, in spite of predictions that DEXs were on the rise after the various problems many CEXs, most notably FTX, experienced.
Instead, Coinbase, which is the largest US CEX, is showing that users continue to trust centralized exchanges, so much so that its cumulative exchange volumes in these first weeks of 2023 amount to more than $185 billion, compared to Uniswap’s $93 billion. In other words, about twice as many exchanges take place on Coinbase as on the world’s leading decentralized exchange.
By contrast, in 2022, Uniswap’s trading volumes were roughly equal to those of Coinbase, but this trend appears to have been only temporary.
Trouble for BNB
In contrast, Binance’s cryptocurrency, BNB, underperformed in February.
Indeed, the problems Paxos had with BUSD (Binance USD) continued to weigh on the exchange, which experienced massive outflows last week.
In particular, the price ratio between BNB and BTC fell to its lowest level since August 2022. Instead until November 2022, BNB mostly outperformed BTC, but with the failure of FTX this ratio started to fall.
In addition, the liquidity of BUSD on Binance continues to deteriorate compared to that of USDT.
Compared to 1 February, the market depth of 1% for the top 8 pairs in BUSD by market capitalization has decreased by 31%, while those in USDT have only dropped by 1%.
However, it is not necessarily the case that the loss of liquidity of BUSD pairs on Binance favors those in USDT, because it could also either move to other stablecoins, or simply disappear.
In fact, it is important not to forget that BUSD is the reference stablecoin for DeFi on BSC (Binance Smart Chain), so it is possible that liquidity on the DeFi protocols on BSC will simply be reduced without it moving to other stablecoins.
The token on FTX debt
On 6 February, Huobi listed another token, a so-called “FUD token,” which purports to represent a claim on FTX debt. That debt is allegedly held by a DAO, and Tron founder Justin Sun tweeted its attestation. This is a debt in the tens of millions of dollars.
The DAO then issued FUD tokens for a consideration of $20 million, but Huobi suggests it may be between $20 million and $100 million.
If the debt is more than $20 million, the DAO will transfer the remaining FUD to the holders.
Right now the price of the FUD token is about $13, down sharply from the initial $100.