NFT News Digest: Blur NFT Marketplace becomes the main competitor of OpenSea

In addition to the news that the Blur NFT marketplace is becoming OpenSea’s main competitor, in today’s NFT News Digest for the past week of Feb. 11-17, you’ll find:

• OpenSea canceled fees and updated its fees policy,
• GQ Magazine releases GQ3 Issue 001 NFT Collection.

Blur NFT Marketplace becomes OpenSea’s main competitor

Blur, the relatively new NFT marketplace, has made a splash in the NFT community with its high-profile and successful growth. Against the background of OpenSea, which appeared in 2017 and during this time has become a virtual monopolist in the market, Blur offers a more advanced model for all market participants.

Looks like @blur_io has seen more (wash excluded) trading volume than @opensea almost every day in the first half of February 🔥

Source: https://t.co/yPbPkHn08h pic.twitter.com/beigRmpKW4

— hildobby (@hildobby_) February 15, 2023

As a result, Blur, which was only created in October 2022, is quickly becoming a serious competitor to OpenSea and other platforms. To date, the site has more than 100,000 unique users, and the trading volume has exceeded 900,000 ETH.

And on February 16, it turned out that sales volumes over the past 24 hours on the new marketplace exceeded 3 times the trading volumes on OpenSea.

https://twitter.com/osf_rekt/status/1626177953544503299

How does Blur NFT marketplace take the lead in the market?

Blur NFT marketplace relies on several weak points among competitors at once:

1. According to the developers, this is currently the fastest platform.
2. Blur is a royalty-free marketplace. That is, buyers themselves decide the amount of commission that will go to the authors.
3. The previous reason was a loud call to OpenSea. On February 16, the team in its blog called for blocking the main competitor OpenSea to all authors and creators of the NFT. The reason is the previously introduced technical restrictions by OpenSea, which force all authors to choose a marketplace where they will trade and make a profit. That is, previously it was impossible for any creator to trade on both OpenSea and Blur at the same time. Which, you see, reduces healthy market relations and the free choice of market participants. And the very next day, the largest marketplace lifted these restrictions, acknowledging that Blur played a role in this. We discuss this in detail below.
4. The site has its own $BLUR token, which rewards its audience.
5. This is a trading platform created by and for professional traders. This is what the project team claims, and confirms its words in practice. How? Let’s talk further.

Blur NFT marketplace for the mass attraction of a new audience staged an unprecedented action. At launch, the platform announced the release of its own $BLUR token. It was with the help of it that the team promised to reward loyal users of its platform in the form of airdrops and tokens.

As a result, three airdrops took place:

1. Care Package, which was intended to reward traders who traded NFTs on other exchanges during the six months prior to the launch of Blur.
2. Rewarding users who placed NFTs on the site during November 2022. The reward was 10 times what was offered for the first airdrop.
3. On February 14, the last drop was launched for all users and traders of the site. The promotion will last 60 days.

$BLUR is now LIVE

All traders across all marketplaces in the last 3 months, Care Package holders, and Creators are eligible for the airdrop.

You have 60 days to claim your BLUR ⏰ pic.twitter.com/AZynnHeIhz

— Blur (@blur_io) February 14, 2023

Such a massive event is held under great market attention and is an exciting event for the NFT community. The full application of the internal token has yet to be disclosed. But the fact that the team is doing everything to get away from centralization and be closer to the multitude of market participants makes Blur NFT marketplace a really serious competitor for OpenSea.

OpenSea canceled fees and updated its fees policy

OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, on February 17, without warning, made several high-profile statements at once that relate to the commissions of the site, royalties and policies for interacting with the protocols of other marketplaces. This came as a complete surprise to the entire market, and these changes will have a big impact on both collectors and creators using the platform.

We’re making some big changes today:
1) OpenSea fee → 0% for a limited time
2) Moving to optional creator earnings (0.5% min) for all collections without on-chain enforcement (old & new)
3) Marketplaces with the same policies will not be blocked by the operator filter

— OpenSea (@opensea) February 17, 2023

What exactly are the innovations introduced by OpenSea?

So, let’s see what will change in the OpenSea policy now:

1. The 2.5% fee that is added to every OpenSea transaction will be charged for a limited time.
2. Transition to an optional commission to the authors of all collections without enforcement in the network (old and new). There remains only a minimum bar of commission in the amount of 0.5%. That is, now the buyers themselves decide how much to support the creators of the collections. This item is the most controversial and debatable on the part of the entire market, since the authors received the main income from royalties, and not from primary sales.
3. Marketplaces with a similar policy will not be blocked by the platform operator’s filter.

What are the innovations from OpenSea talking about?

There are several reasons for this change:

1. Competition among NFT marketplaces is growing. If earlier OpenSea was almost a monopolist (about 95% of transactions took place on their basis), now the situation has changed. Marketplaces have to monitor the mood of buyers. And if you do not make improvements specifically for them, then they will quickly find an alternative in the form of another marketplace. Buyers don’t like to pay royalties, but the market needs buyers. Therefore, if you choose between authors and buyers, OpenSea chooses the latter and cancels their mandatory commissions for collection authors. And in order to even out the choice of buyers, she additionally canceled her own commissions as a marketplace for the advertising period.
2. The latest change regarding the blocking of other sites is caused by a conflict of interest with the sensational NFT marketplace Blur. Technically, marketplace protocols forced creators and creators to choose between these two marketplaces. Otherwise, there was a risk for the authors to remain without deductions. To date, it is extremely dangerous to put the target audience in the form of authors in front of a tough choice in a time of fierce competition. And the OpenSea team understands this well. That is why they have now canceled the blocking of other platforms with a similar policy on their part. Thus, providing the opportunity for authors to work with several sites at once. Now creators don’t have to make a false choice between making money on OpenSea or Blur.
3. The innovation was announced almost immediately after Blur’s statement calling for the authors to block the largest marketplace due to their irrational policies. Moreover, OpenSea in its statement does not deny the influence of a third-party marketplace on their decisions. Thus, we can conclude that the young marketplace represents serious competition for OpenSea, and the struggle for the audience is just beginning.

Such steps on the part of the largest marketplace are somewhat logical and expected. Today, a significant part (about 80%) of the entire market does not pay full commission to authors, and most of them have switched to zero commission at all. And, of course, OpenSea cannot lose its consumer audience against this background.

Such large-scale steps characterize the marketplace as dynamically developing and listening to market sentiment. It is commendable that the platform is in search of balance through rewards for all participants in the ecosystem – creators, collectors, buyers and sellers.

GQ Magazine Releases NFT Collection GQ3 Issue 001

On February 16, GQ, the oldest men’s magazine in the world, announced the first ever collection of 1661 NFTs in honor of the brand’s 66th anniversary. The collection is called GQ3 Issue 001: Change Is Good collection. And it is the second part of the name that is also the motto of the project. Mint will take place on March 8, and each token will cost 0.1957 ETH in honor of the year the global brand was founded.

We’re excited to announce GQ’s first-ever #web3 digital art drop, the GQ3 Issue 001: Change Is Good collection https://t.co/Af6ZrG6DHK pic.twitter.com/lPx5FjWa4t

— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) February 15, 2023

Who created the NFT Collection GQ3 Issue 001?

The global brand GQ has taken seriously the issue of choosing digital artists to create its first collection. So, 4 people were selected from the most interesting and visionary artists on the planet:

1. Chuck Anderson @NoPattern
2. Serwah Attafuah @serwah_attafuah
3. Kelsey Niziolek @KelseyNiziolek
4. REO @thisREO

Each of them began to create based on the campaign motto “Change Is Good”. As a result, each artist created over 100 unique features that were algorithmically combined and turned into independent works of art. After that, each artist carefully hand-crafted the final collection.

What are the benefits of owning GQ3 Issue 001 NFT?

Owning the NFT “GQ3 Issue 001: Change Is Good collection” is not just a ticket to the GQ universe. Such ownership gives the user a number of real advantages:

1. subscription to the magazine,
2. GQ box,
3. exclusive GQ3 merch,
4. ticket to the first ever GQ3 party in New York
5. access to the GQ3 community as a founder and holder with permanent access to live events, a dedicated GQ Discord section
6. inclusion in the whitelist of future drops.