On Tuesday, August 17th, the NFT marketplace SuperRare introduced $RARE token as part of an evolution in art curation. The token allows the SuperRare platform to be community-owned and governed, with diverse curatorial voices among its leaders.
This announcement came in the middle of August, which is one of the highest-ever months in volume for NFT sales. OpenSea is another NFT marketplace that has done over $1 billion in volume this month to date.
SuperRare launched on April 5th, 2018, and since then amassed over $90M in NFT art sales to over 1400 artists on their platform. SuperRare 2.0 introduces an entirely new means of marketplace curation, all governed by their $RARE token.
In addition to the introduction of a community-led marketplace, SuperRare launched a “RAREdrop” of “150,000,000 $RARE - or 15% of the total supply” which can be claimed by both artists and collectors who have bought and sold work on the platform.
The current price of $RARE can be found here.
SuperRare’s Goal is to incentivize their creators and collectors to continue building the marketplace they have developed by governing and adding to the platform.
Although SuperRare is not the first to launch a governance token, (Rarible launched $RARI token in July 2020), this is a big step for creator-led communities and decentralized NFT marketplaces.
With the launch of SuperRare 2.0, the community will now vote through a DAO in order to determine what artists will be featured in its “Spaces”—or galleries that will help promote artists and create a diverse ecosystem.
SupeRares’ goal is to create the “sovereign artist”. They believe that the future of the web belongs to creators and that, by enabling artists to control their destiny, SuperRare will allow them to take the leap and become free to create how they want to create.
Going forward, the $RARE token enables artists to control the dynamics of what it means to be an artist and see the economic benefit of being a cultural influence.
“If your work alters history, welcome to the timeline that rewards you for it.”
