Ahead of its token unlock this week, BLUR – the native token for the non-fungible token (NFT) exchange with the same name – has slid roughly 4% in the past 24 hours to 31 cents, performing worse than the rest of the market as reflected by the CoinDesk Market Index.
The token unlock, which will take place on Wednesday, will release almost 196 million tokens, representing nearly 40% of the currently circulating supply, according to data from CoinGecko and Token Unlocks. When this $62 million of tokens are released, owners of BLUR will get greater autonomy over their holdings, gaining the ability to sell or swap.
Releasing that much new supply could push prices down, assuming demand stays constant – as the fundamentals of economics would suggest. But the unlock also comes several days after a wide sell-off this past weekend that drove down the price of tokens the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission labeled as securities. Even though the SEC did not mention BLUR, it dropped more than 20% this past weekend.
About 83% of all BLUR tokens remain locked, according to Token Unlocks.
BLUR’s liquidity stands at roughly $2.39 million in its top five pools on Uniswap V3, the most recent iteration of the largest decentralized exchange by trading volume. On MEXC, a different crypto exchange, a $473,000 sell order can cause the price of BLUR drop 2%, while a $394,000 buy order can cause the BLUR to jump 2%, according to CoinGecko.
Blur representatives didn’t return a request to comment by press time.