Major NFT Marketplaces Comparison

OpenSea

OpenSea was the first-generation NFT marketplace and once dominated 90% of all NFT trading volume before 2022. Its valuation peaked at $13.3 billion in January 2022. However, it began to decline rapidly after platforms like Blur introduced collection-based liquidity mining.

OpenSea operated as a traditional company and didn’t issue a native token early on. NFTs were originally traded through a storefront model. It wasn’t until late 2024 that OpenSea started copying Blur’s liquidity mining approach and announced plans to launch a platform token.

Blur

Blur launched in October 2022 as an Ethereum-based NFT aggregator marketplace. It introduced innovative token incentives for both liquidity providers and collectors, including liquidity mining and cross-platform tradings. Combined with fast execution and low gas fees, Blur attracted over 300,000 traders within just four months.

Notably, Blur’s bidding system only supports bids across an entire collection or a group of NFTs with the same trait. However, since NFTs are non-fungible and each one has a different value, this approach only partially addresses the liquidity issues seen on OpenSea. Most NFTs still lack effective liquidity support.

MagicEden

Magic Eden is a marketplace focused on NFTs and Runes in the Solana and Bitcoin ecosystems, using a liquidity mining model similar to Blur.