Blur's planned website closure has revived criticism of the optional royalty rules and token rewards that helped it overtake OpenSea during the NFT boom, while leaving creators with less secondary-sale revenue.
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Blur, the NFT marketplace that rose to prominence during the digital collectibles boom, has said it plans to shut down its website, a move reported by Cointelegraph on Oct. 13, 2026. The announcement quickly revived an older argument about the royalty rules and token incentives that powered the platform's growth. Blur had positioned itself as a trading-focused venue, in contrast with OpenSea, which for years enforced creator royalties by default. The closure plan concerns the website itself, but much of the reaction has centred on what the platform's model did to the wider NFT market.
Creator royalties are the share of each secondary sale that flows back to the artist or project behind an NFT, and they were a standard feature of early marketplace design. Blur made royalties optional for traders, allowing buyers to avoid them unless a seller used royalty-enforcing filters, a structure that let the platform compete aggressively on cost. OpenSea, which had long enforced royalties, later introduced its own optional model, a shift widely interpreted as a response to that competitive pressure. The practical effect was a broad decline in the revenue creators collected from secondary trading, which is the core of the criticism now resurfacing. For traders, the same change lowered the effective cost of buying and selling.
Blur also used token-based incentives to pull activity away from OpenSea, rewarding users who listed and traded on the platform with its native token. Those rewards helped Blur overtake OpenSea in trading volume during the NFT boom, making it a central venue for the market. Critics argued the incentives encouraged high-frequency activity driven by farming the token rather than by genuine demand for the underlying artworks. That distinction matters because it shapes how analysts read volume data from that period. The criticism is being revisited now that the platform is stepping back from its consumer-facing site.
For frequent traders, the closure debate is inseparable from the fee and royalty structure Blur introduced. Collectors who transact often benefited directly from lower costs, which helps explain the approving reaction from parts of the community. Some of the enthusiasm also reflects lingering frustration with the token-reward era and the perception that it distorted prices for collections. Creators, by contrast, have tended to cite the same history as evidence that royalty enforcement needs to be embedded in market infrastructure rather than left to platform competition. The split reaction reflects a market in which buyers and sellers have materially different interests.
Blur has said it plans to close its website, according to a Cointelegraph report dated Oct. 13, 2026. The report links the announcement to renewed criticism of the royalty policies and token rewards that defined the platform during the NFT boom, rather than to a stated change in creator policy. Details about the timing and the treatment of existing users have not been fully established in the source material.
Creator royalties are a percentage of each secondary sale of an NFT that is paid back to the original artist or project. They were broadly enforced by early marketplaces but became optional at several large venues as platforms competed on trading costs. Because secondary trading was a major source of income for creators, making royalties optional reduced that revenue stream.
Blur combined optional creator royalties with token-based rewards that paid users for listing and trading on the platform. That mix lowered trading costs and gave active users an additional financial incentive, which helped it surpass OpenSea in trading volume during the NFT boom. The approach drew criticism that some of that volume reflected token farming rather than demand for the art itself.
Blur's Planned Website Shutdown
The Royalty Fight That Reshaped Marketplace Competition
Token Rewards and the Race With OpenSea
Why Parts of the Collector Community Are Cheering
What the Episode Highlights About the NFT Market
This article is rewritten from public news sources and further processed by AI. It is provided for information only and does not constitute investment advice — refer to the original source for the authoritative version.
The news lands in an NFT market well past its 2021–2022 peak, when trading volumes and new collections ran far above current levels. Marketplaces that expanded during that period have since consolidated, trimmed features, or shifted focus, and a website closure fits that pattern rather than standing apart from it. What remains unresolved is the royalty question: platforms continue to compete over whether creator royalties are enforced, optional, or waived, and each choice redistributes revenue between creators and traders. The tension is a structural feature of how these marketplaces compete, and it does not depend on any single platform's decision. Based on public news sources.
Collectors who trade frequently benefited from the lower effective costs that Blur's optional royalty model introduced. Some also see the closure as a verdict on the token-reward era, which they blame for distorting prices across collections. Creators generally view the same history differently, arguing it shows royalties need structural enforcement rather than platform-by-platform discretion.
The episode highlights a competition over creator royalties that has not been settled, since marketplaces can choose to enforce, make optional, or waive them. Each choice shifts revenue between creators and traders, which is why the debate outlasts individual platforms. The report focuses on the website closure and the criticism surrounding Blur's model, not on any specific outcome for the market.
