NFT marketplace Blur will shut down its website on Nov. 12, according to an announcement posted Monday on X — its first post on the platform in more than a year. The on-chain marketplace will keep operating, and Blend, Blur's peer-to-peer perpetual NFT lending protocol, will stop matching new loans.

Borrowers on Blend have until Nov. 12 to repay outstanding loans or let them default, the company said. Blur promised to keep a withdrawal interface available after the shutdown. The firm did not disclose why it chose to close its frontend and wind down new lending activity.

The announcement drew hostile replies from collectors. "Good riddance. You destroyed NFTs. Please shut down and never come back," said NFT collector Cryptobscure in a reply on X. Collector starfruit posted: "You may not have been able to complete your mission to destroy NFTs. But you acted with extreme determination and tried everything. Congratulations to us for surviving you."

Why did collectors turn on Blur?

The closure revived criticism of the two policies that carried Blur past OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume in 2023: optional creator royalties and token rewards that rewarded traders for bidding and flipping NFTs. Those mechanics pulled the market toward lower creator payouts. OpenSea later moved to optional creator fees for new collections, mirroring Blur's approach.

Blur launched on Oct. 19, 2022, letting sellers customize royalty payments while promising larger prospective token rewards to those who paid higher creator royalties. It entered a market where royalty protections were already eroding — rival marketplace Magic Eden had switched to optional royalties the previous week.

The measurable damage to creators came quickly. Blockchain analytics platform Nansen reported that effective creator royalty fees fell to 0.6% in July 2023, down from an average of 2.5% in 2022. Nansen attributed most of that gap to Blur's growth, its minimum royalty policy, and OpenSea lowering its own royalty requirements to compete.

How weak is the market Blur is leaving?

The shutdown lands in a market far below boom-era levels. CryptoSlam data shows total NFT sales of $167 million across 2.9 million transactions in September. At the January 2022 peak, sales reached $6 billion over 13.7 million transactions — roughly 36 times September's dollar volume.

Blur is not the only platform retreating. Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway and social collecting platform Rodeo announced in January they would wind down. Foundation announced its closure in April after a sale intended to keep it operating fell through. Binance ended NFT support on its exchange and shifted asset management to Binance Wallet.

Cointelegraph reached out to Blur founder Tieshun "Pacman" Roquerre for comment.

The Nov. 12 deadline now doubles as a stress test for Blend's outstanding loans: any borrower who fails to repay before the cutoff will move to default, with the promised withdrawal interface as the only remaining user-facing tool once the frontend goes dark.