Blur’s Token Airdrop Fuels Sky-High Gas Prices and Massive Ethereum Burn – Decrypt

More than $4 million worth of Ethereum has been burned (or destroyed) over the past seven days as a result of this week’s token airdrop by newcomer NFT marketplace Blur.

The tokens were airdropped on Valentine’s Day to Blur users who have actively traded Ethereum NFTs on the marketplace over the past six months.

The price climbed to $5 at launch, before retreating sharply below one dollar within an hour. At $0.90, BLUR token is currently down 82% from its launch day high.

The culmination of the Blur activity has seen over 2,469 Ethereum burned, according to data from Ultra Sound Money. Since the London hard fork in August 2021, a portion of transaction fees previously paid to miners have now been burned and removed from circulation.

The bulk of this amount, roughly 1,158 ETH, appears to be directly related to users claiming their airdrops. The rest of the activity stems from BLUR token transfers and activity on the Blur marketplace itself.

There may be more airdrop crackers yet.

According to Dune Analytics, at the time of writing, 92.5% of airdropped tokens have been claimed by over 100,000 wallets.

Blur enters chat

Of late, Blur has taken a substantial chunk of the broader NFT market share.

According to Dune, Blur currently commands over 43% of the weekly volume, with OpenSea enjoying 37.1%, with the next runner-up, X2Y2, claiming only 9.9% of trading volume.

At its peak last January, OpenSea accounted for more than 95% of weekly volume in the sector.

Weekly volume for various NFT markets. Source: Doon.

Of the two major NFT marketplaces, OpenSea is the more established name, but this week’s airdrop of Blur has taken the wind out of the market leader’s sails.

On Wednesday, the newcomer announced it would enforce any royalty fees requested by creators as long as those creators stop trading their collections on OpenSea — a marked escalation of hostility toward the competitor.

Blur, which launched last October, doesn’t fully respect creator royalty settings — meaning the platform doesn’t apply the fee (typically between 5% and 10%) that NFT creators charge for their projects. Can claim on secondary sale of works.

The platform currently only applies a 0.5% minimum creator royalty, with the option for merchants to pay more.

Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates delivered to your inbox.

Source