Leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has announced the launch of perpetual futures contracts for the NFT marketplace Blur’s governance token, eliciting varied responses from large token holders, known as whales.
On April 27, Binance revealed its plan to launch a perpetual futures contract that allows betting on the price of Blur against the stablecoin Tether, with up to 20x leverage. The Blur/USDT contract went live today.
Whale activities diverge on Blur tokens
Earlier today, a whale purchased 1.39 million Blur governance tokens with one million USD Coin at an average price of $0.72 via decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch.
In contrast, another whale, associated with the Ethereum Name Service domain luggis.eth, traded 1.77 million BLUR for 1.2 million USDC at an average price of $0.68 per token. This transaction resulted in a loss of approximately $295,000 for luggis.eth, as pointed out by on-chain analyst Lookonchain on Twitter. Luggis.eth currently holds no Blur governance tokens. Etherscan data indicates the market price for Blur’s governance token stands at $0.72.
Declining volumes and user-friendliness concerns for Blur
Blur has experienced decreasing volumes in recent weeks, with some suggesting that the NFT marketplace, aimed at professional traders, is not especially user-friendly for mainstream NFT traders. One Twitter user commented on the platform’s temporary incentive program, which prioritized bidding over organic trading, stating, “It’s just been degens PvP’ing each other all year.”
Rival NFT aggregator OpenSea Pro saw a substantial rise in active addresses and transaction volumes following its launch, capturing the largest share of transactions in a competitive market. OpenSea Pro’s share of daily active users has continued to grow, with data tracking platform Dune showing that it currently accounts for 70% of the market.