Blur Airdrop Fuels Ethereum NFT Trading Surge in Q1 2023

On May 10, 2023

In the first quarter of 2023, NFT trading volumes on Ethereum experienced a significant surge compared to the previous quarter. The growth can be partially credited to the excitement surrounding the airdrop farming of Blur’s native token.

Crypto analytics firm Nansen revealed that NFT trading volume more than doubled in 2023. In Q4 2022, $1.9 billion worth of NFTs were traded, while in Q1 2023, the figure rose to $4.5 billion. A chart displaying weekly trading volumes of NFTs on Ethereum supports this data.

Blur, an NFT marketplace and aggregator, launched in October 2022 and scheduled an airdrop of its native token, BLUR, on February 14, 2023. This event attracted a considerable number of airdrop hunters during the first quarter.

Source Nansen

Although trading volumes saw an impressive increase of over two-fold, the growth in the number of unique wallets trading NFTs was comparatively modest at 24.5% during the same timeframe.

In Q1 2023, there were 13.9 million users, a slight rise from the 11.2 million users recorded in Q4 2022. This data suggests that existing users were trading at higher volumes, likely due to the BLUR token airdrop rather than a significant influx of new users.

However, an examination of NFT activity this spring paints a slightly more bearish picture despite the yearly trend. April experienced a 30% decline in trading volumes across various marketplaces compared to March.

Nansen reported that the situation worsened in May, with the first week of the month seeing the lowest number of sales and users this year. Weekly NFT sales dropped to around 370,000.

Trading volumes in May reverted to the bearish levels of 2022, with approximately 90,000 ETH traded weekly. Nevertheless, trading volumes in USD have remained relatively stable, mainly due to Ethereum’s bullish start to the year.

Previously, the asset ranked second in market capitalization and traded below $1,300 in Q4 last year. However, its current value is approaching $1,900, reflecting a notable increase.