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Blur NFT lending surpasses $16M in loans, led by Machi Big Brother

May 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blur

The milestone comes just one day after the protocol's launch on May 1.

According to data sourced from user @beetle from Dune Dashboard, nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Blur has facilitated 8,820 Ether, or roughly $16.37 million, in loans through perpetual NFT lending protocol Blend one day after its launch. On May 1, Blur introduced Blend as a novel protocol for pledging NFTs for loans, which was developed in conjunction with venture capital firm Paradigm.

Together, the Azuki, Wrapped CryptoPunks and Milady NFT collections represent the largest collateral, with over 8,000 Ether (ETH) worth in market value pledged. The top Blur lender, who has issued 58 loans worth 1,180 ETH, is Taiwanese celebrity Jeff Huang, also known as Machi Big Brother.

A prominent figure in Taiwan's music industry, Machi Big Brother is also an avid collector of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series. Machi was one of the biggest recipients of the Blur token airdrop in February and reportedly sold 1,010 NFTs within 48 hours on Feb. 25 in the "largest NFT dump ever."

There are 846 active loans on the platform at the time of publication, with eight refinancing events. As a perpetual lending protocol, Blend automatically extends the duration of loans at expiry, assuming neither the borrowing nor lending party objects. Loans can also be refinanced or held at Dutch auction in case of interest rate changes. Protocol developers claim that Blend charges neither borrowing nor lending fees, but only interest.

PSA

Blur fees by protocol:

Blur Marketplace: 0% fees for traders

Blur Lending (Blend): 0% fees for borrowers and lenders

Note that borrowers still pay interest on loans based on what lenders offer. 100% of that goes to the lender.
— Blur (@blur_io) May 2, 2023

Last year, NFT lending protocols fell into disarray after a crypto bear market caused many collectibles to become illiquid , some of which had no bids at all. One protocol, BendDAO, had as little as $23,715 to pay back lenders at the time after facilitating more than 15,000 ETH in loans.

Magazine: Nonfungible Tokens, The Quick Guide

Blur introduces NFT perpetual lending protocol

May 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blur

Borrowing positions automatically roll their expiry and can be refinanced should one party unilaterally decide to terminate.

On May 1, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) marketplace Blur launched Blend, a peer-to-peer perpetual lending protocol that supports NFT collateral. Developed with venture capital firm Paradigm, developers cite Blend's rationale as a means of "financialization to scale."

4/ Every trillion dollar market relies on financialization to scale. NFTs are no different.

Instead of paying $1m for a house, buyers put $100k down and pay the rest through their mortgage. Without this mechanism, almost no one would be able to afford homes. pic.twitter.com/4J96G3pGnJ
— Blur (@blur_io) May 1, 2023

Blend has neither oracle dependencies nor expiries, allowing borrowing positions to open indefinitely until terminated. Developers also claim that the protocol would collect zero fees from borrowers and lenders:

"Blend matches users who want to borrow against their nonfungible collateral with whatever lender is willing to offer the most competitive rate, using a sophisticated off-chain offer protocol."

Per design, Blend automatically "rolls a borrowing position for as long as some lender is willing to lend that amount against the collateral." For this, no on-chain transactions are required unless one party decides to exit the position or there is a change in interest rate.

By using a perpetual lending protocol, borrowers and lenders extend the loan expiration time by a predetermined period by default. If a lender wishes to terminate the loan against the borrower's wishes, an interest-rate "Dutch auction" for refinancing is held when the borrower has not repaid the debt at expiration. The auction begins at 0% refinance interest with a steadily rising rate.

"In Blend, an NFT may be liquidated whenever a lender triggers a refinancing auction and nobody is willing to take over the debt at any interest rate."

That said, developers explained that borrowers can repay the loan at any time on Blend. "If a borrower wants to change the amount they have borrowed or get a better interest rate, they can atomically take out a new loan against the collateral and use the new principal to repay the old loan," they wrote.

Launched in the third quarter of 2022, Blur has rewarded users with "care packages," redeemable for BLUR tokens since Feb. 14 to increase trading activity. The platform has since surpassed OpenSea in terms of trading volume.

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OpenSea collector fat fingers a 100 ETH bid for a free NFT

April 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blur

Some pundits have argued the trader mistakenly put up a bid for 100 ETH which was quickly snapped up, while others believe the sale was a wash trade.

A nonfungible token (NFT) trader has seemingly fat-fingered a bid for a free NFT, buying it for 100 Ether (ETH), currently valued at $191,239, instead of nothing.

The token was part of NFT marketplace OpenSea’s Gemesis NFT collection — free NFTs intended to commemorate the launch of OpenSea Pro on April 4. The trader's bid is a 250,000% increase on the floor price of 0.04 ETH.

OpenSea Pro is a marketplace aggregator tailored to professional users by providing them with what OpenSea calls “a vastly improved” suite of features such as live cross-marketplace data and advanced orders.

*A record of the transaction on an Ethereum blockchain explorer. Source:* *Etherscan*

While some have argued the sale was wash trading, Twitter user “0xSun” believed the sale — which occurred on the NFT marketplace Blur — happened because the trader wanted to bid $100 as an amount, but accidentally bid 100 ETH instead.

Yeah someone else put the 100ETH bid by mistake (He probably want to bid 100 as amount) and it got accepted by another one with 1500+ gwei gas
— 0xSun (@0xSunNFT) April 5, 2023

A Reddit user who posted about the sale also cast doubt on the wash trading theory, arguing it was an open offer that was available to anyone, making it too risky to be a wash trade as another trader or bot would quickly snap up an offer so far above the floor price.

“I know what you guys are thinking it was a wash trade but this was an open offer that could have been accepted by anybody, so it would be a pretty big risk hoping you were faster than anybody else looking at the offers at that moment.”

Wash trading is a form of market manipulation in which a trader buys and sells an asset to feed misleading information to the market. The practice is illegal in traditional stock markets but is very prevalent in NFT trading.

OpenSea acquired NFT aggregator Gem for an undisclosed amount on April 25, 2022, and refined the platform in order to create OpenSea Pro.

Only users who bought at least one NFT on Gem prior to March 31 are eligible to mint a Gemesis NFT, with the minting window set to close on May 4.

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