The NFT marketplace competition has intensified as Blur’s airdrop has helped it to gain the top spot ahead of OpenSea. The airdrop, which took place in three phases, marked the end of a months-long process to incentivize users and increase the liquidity of a new marketplace, with the BLUR token serving as the platform’s governance token.
Unlike the direct token distribution, Blur used a gamified approach, issuing Care Packages with different levels of rarity to reward user loyalty, distinguishing their actions in the three airdrop phases.
The features catering to pro traders, such as zero marketplace fees, sweeping and sniping tools, collection depth charts, real-time data updates, and more, combined with the token incentive, helped Blur become the largest NFT marketplace by user count and trading volume.
Its user count share of 45% and trading volume share of 85% surpassed OpenSea’s 43% and 10%, respectively.
The airdrop’s success highlights that tokens, if correctly implemented, can be effective incentivization mechanisms to encourage user engagement, as seen with other protocols. However, LooksRare, a competitor marketplace that uses token incentives, only allocated 12% of its token supply for the airdrop and rewarded traders directly based on trading volume, resulting in reportedly 95% of historical volume attributed to wash trading, which led to low sticky usage and inorganic volume. Its token value has since fallen by 97%.
Despite Blur’s recent success, the NFT marketplace industry continues to evolve and grow rapidly. With new players entering the market and established platforms implementing updates to remain competitive, the landscape is constantly changing. One area of focus for many marketplaces is sustainability, with concerns over the environmental impact of NFT transactions growing.
Some marketplaces, such as Terra Virtua, have responded by exploring alternative blockchain solutions with lower carbon footprints, while others are implementing eco-friendly initiatives such as tree-planting for each NFT sold. As the industry continues to develop, it will be interesting to see which marketplaces prioritize sustainability and other innovative features to stand out from the competition.