BLUR Price Plummets After Airdrop Launch

NFT marketplace Blur officially launched its BLUR token at 00:00 AM on February 15, following numerous delays and much speculation.

As previously reported by Coin68, the highly anticipated event in the NFT investment community has arrived: Blur's release of its BLUR token and the airdrop for early supporters.

Participants who have listed and traded NFTs on Blur since its inception in October 2022 were eligible to receive "Care Package" NFTs of varying rarity. From 00:00 AM on February 15, 2023 (Vietnam Time), these Care Packages were unlocked, granting holders corresponding amounts of BLUR tokens.

Blur disclosed that this incentivized activity over the past four months attracted 146,823 users and facilitated nearly $1.2 billion in NFT trades (including wash trading).

Furthermore, Blur aims to compete with major NFT marketplaces like OpenSea by offering free transaction services, including NFT trading, aggregators, and analytics tools for professional investors. The platform also does not enforce creator royalty fees.

Blur plans to airdrop 360 million BLUR tokens, which constitutes 12% of the total supply of 3 billion tokens. Investors will have 60 days to unlock their Care Packages and claim their tokens. However, according to data from Dune Analytics at the time of writing, over 78% of the airdropped tokens have already been claimed by users.

BLUR Token Allocation. Source: Blur Foundation

According to project documentation, BLUR is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with governance functions, allowing holders to vote on aspects of the Blur Foundation, such as token distribution and fund management. The token allocation is as follows:

• 1.53 billion BLUR (51%) for the community, to be voted on by the community over the next 4 years, with allocations of 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10% each year.
• 867.6 million BLUR (29%) for project contributors, unlocking gradually over 4 years.
• 565.6 million BLUR (18.8%) for investors, unlocking gradually over 4 years.
• 36.7 million BLUR (1.2%) for advisors, unlocking gradually over 4-5 years.

BLUR Token Unlock Schedule. Source: Blur Foundation

Except for Binance, almost all major cryptocurrency exchanges have listed BLUR, including Coinbase, OKX, Bybit, Huobi, MEXC, KuCoin, Gate.io, Bitget, Bitmart, and others.

According to CoinMarketCap, after listing at a high of $5, BLUR was heavily sold off by airdrop recipients and is currently trading in the range of $0.50 – $0.70. The trading volume of BLUR in recent hours has exceeded $500 million.

At the current price, BLUR has a market capitalization of $278 million, with a fully diluted market cap of $2 billion.

BLUR Price Fluctuations Since Airdrop, Screenshot from CoinMarketCap at 08:00 AM on February 15, 2023

The Block reports that Blur is preparing to raise additional funds with a "unicorn" valuation, exceeding $1 billion. The platform previously conducted a single fundraising round of $11 million in March 2022 from the prominent investment fund Paradigm.

The BLUR airdrop has caused a surge in Ethereum users claiming tokens, leading to a spike in transaction fees on the Ethereum network to the highest levels since the FTX collapse.

Ethereum Gas Fee Volatility from September 2022 to Present. Source: Etherscan

The amount of ETH burned in the past 24 hours has also surged, with Ethereum gas fees driving up to 406 ETH burned in Blur transactions, further contributing to Ethereum network deflation.