• OpenSea was once the market leader in the NFT marketplace, but Blur has managed to capture a huge chunk of its market share.
• Since Blur’s airdrop event, users have seen an uptick in unique users on OpenSea.
• Trading volumes of major collections such as CryptoPunks, BAYC, Otherdeed, and more have decreased on Blur and risen on OpenSea.
OpenSea vs. Blur
The NFT marketplace is a highly competitive space and two leading players are OpenSea and Blur. After launching last November, Blur quickly rose up to challenge OpenSea’s dominance by implementing a royalty policy which stated that creators can’t earn royalties from both platforms simultaneously. Despite this power grab strategy, it appears that OpenSea is making a comeback with an uptick in unique users since taking a plunge in mid-February. Furthermore, trading volume of major collections like CryptoPunks, BAYC, Otherdeed and more have decreased on Blur and risen on OpenSea after the airdrop event for BLUR governance tokens which accumulated over $1 billion in trading volume.
What is BLUR?
BLUR is the governance token for the emergent NFT marketplace called Blur. The token was distributed among users through an airdrop event last week which resulted in over $1 billion worth of trading volume across various collections like CryptoPunks, BAYC, Otherdeed etc.
Implications of Airdrop
The implications of this event appear to be positive for OpenSea as they have seen an increase in their user base since mid-February despite the royalty policy implemented by Blur which prevents creators from earning royalties from both platforms simultaneously. Additionally there has been significant decrease in average sale size per user on blur after the airdrop while trading volumes for these collections continue to rise on open sea instead of blur.
Will Open Sea Regain Dominance?
It remains to be seen if Open Sea will be able to reclaim its market share or not but it does appear that the platform is slowly regaining some traction due to its recent uptick in unique users along with increasing trading volumes across major collections like CryptoPunks et al . It would be interesting to observe what strategies they might come up with next as they battle against their emerging competitor – Blur – for supremacy over the NFT marketplace space .
Conclusion
Overall , it appears that despite suffering losses due to emergence of new competition , Open Sea is making slow progress towards reclaiming back some market share . It would be interesting to see how far they will manage go before being overtaken once again by their rivals .