Rival to OpenSea, Blur, closes funding round at $1B valuation
Blur, a rival to top NFT marketplace OpenSea, has reportedly secured funding in a recent round, resulting in a $1 billion valuation for the startup.
Blur turning into a unicorn startup
The funding round was initially targeting $15-30 million with a $700 million price tag, but ended up being oversubscribed, which led to the unicorn valuation. The company has not made any official statement on the issue.
Blur’s funding announcement coincided with the much-anticipated launch of its in-house token on February 14th, which was postponed by two weeks from the original January launch date. The delay was reportedly to ensure an unprecedented launch experience.
The platform’s appeal may be partially attributed to its airdrop initiative, where BLUR tokens were awarded as incentives to traders at different levels of platform participation. The three airdrops have already been concluded. However, there is no definitive strategy in place for the tokens as of yet.
Blur’s recent funding round has enabled the company to raise funds worth $1 billion, with $11 million raised in the seed round in March 2022. Paradigm, eGirl Capital, 0xMaki, and LedgerStatus were among the investors in that round.
What is next for Blur?
Blur’s $1 billion valuation puts it in the race to be among the key players in the NFT arena, and the outcome of its in-house token launch will be a significant barometer of its future potential.
The successful funding round has put Blur in a position to compete with the major player in the NFT marketplace, OpenSea, which is valued at $13.3 billion after a $300 million funding round in July 2021. Especially when taking into consideration that OpenSea has been losing market dominance to Blur and other rival platforms.
Although Blur has achieved remarkable success, it will need to navigate regulatory barriers, as lawmakers across the globe attempt to classify and regulate NFTs.
BLUR token listed on Coinbase
After the latest airdrop, the BLUR token has been listed for trading on Coinbase, one of the largest centralized exchanges (CEX) in the world.
Coinbase intends to list BLUR as an experimental token. The exchange will enable the trading of the BLUR-USD pair only once there is sufficient liquidity. Its also important to note that, taking into account the recent legislation hurdles by countries such as the US, BLUR may not be available in all jurisdictions.
BLUR is the governance token distributed by Blur.io to early traders via airdrops, with varying levels of rarity. The airdrops were used to generate buzz and hype around the project by rewarding active traders with uncommon, rare, or legendary care packages.
Beware of hackers and bad actors
In anticipation of the announcement by Blur tomorrow, bad actors have already created a fake token to take advantage of naive investors.
Cygaar, a crypto enthusiast and specialist, tweeted about the issue. With the aim of protecting the crypto community from scammers, Cygaar warned its followers and showed how to avoid the fake BLUR token contract.
