The Blur airdrop clearly benefited wash traders the most, with the top three wallets each claiming at least $1.5 million worth of tokens. Emerging NFT marketplace Blur held its anticipated BLUR token airdrop this afternoon, with some top traders snapping up over $1 million worth of tokens at current prices. In fact, the top trader received over $1.9 million worth of Ethereum-based governance tokens.
According to public blockchain data curated by Dune, the top claimant of the BLUR airdrop received more than 3.2 million BLUR tokens, worth about $1.93 million based on CoinGecko’s current price of about $0.60 per token.
It is unclear who owns the ethereum wallet that claims to hold a large number of coins, but it is a relatively new wallet that was created less than three months ago. It is also very active in the NFT space, with a large number of Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Otherside NFTs traded in recent days. Looking at the transaction activity in the wallet shows that holders have been buying and selling large amounts of the same NFTs over and over again, suggesting a shuffling transaction or at least a concerted effort to game the Blur transaction model. The sale price is not high enough to raise suspicions, yet assets are being flipped at such a frequent rate to generate huge volume.
Interestingly, looking at the wallets of the second highest claimant (2.97 million BLUR, or $1.8 million) and the third highest claimant (2.5 million BLUR, or $1.5 million) shows a lot of interaction with the top wallets, including back and forth Blur sells various NFTs in bulk.
Again, it points to wash trading by one person or group across multiple wallets, or a coordinated effort. As with the top wallets, it's unclear who owns them but they're all intertwined in what appears to be a massive and successful attempt to manipulate the Blur airdrop, sure to boost Blur's market volume in the process.
Other leaders in the Blur airdrop include well-known collectors and social media personalities including the pseudonymous Machi Big Brother (nearly 1.85K BLUR, or $1.1M), Keungz (610K BLUR, or $368,000) and major Bored Ape Yacht clubs Trader Franklin (540K BLUR, or $326,000 worth).
Blur offered 360 million BLUR tokens through an airdrop, and this circulating supply gives the token a current market cap of approximately $217 million. However, it represents a relatively small percentage of the total BLUR supply, apparently totaling 3 billion BLUR once all tokens are issued. So far, almost 260 million airdrop tokens have been claimed, accounting for about 72%.
BLUR surged as high as $5.02 per token when it debuted today, but has since dropped sharply. It is currently down 88% from that brief peak.
