SuperRare Turns Two! 💎 🎉
Building a sustainable future for artists in the digital age
A Dream Becoming a Reality
On April 2, 2018, we launched SuperRare with the dream of making a new creative economy on the internet– one that would directly benefit creators.
The old model of networks like YouTube & Instagram are broken. In the Web 2.0 model, creators post their digital works with no compensation, while corporations run ad businesses on top of this content by selling their users’ personal data. We set out to build something revolutionary that would flip this model on its head.
While the path to making a new economy for digital art was admittedly experimental at first, the past two years have more than proven that our mission was not misguided– we have seen an incredible explosion in the size and passion of the community, and the pace of sales in the marketplace.
In SuperRare’s first year, the marketplace did $91,000 of sales volume. Now, at the close of the second year, the marketplace is consistently averaging over $100,000 per month, with a record high monthly volume of $147,000 in December.
Two Years of SuperRare, by the Numbers:
- Community in: 178 countries worldwide
- Single-edition artworks collected: 5,213
- Earned by artists around the world: $603,546
- Secondary market sales volume: $94,460
- Number of bids placed: 14,093
- Record primary sale price: $10,008
- Record secondary sale price: $13,265
A Secondary Market that Continues to Support Artists
One of the founding principles of SuperRare is that the original creator of an artwork gets 10% of all secondary sales of that artwork in the marketplace. A practice infamously absent from the traditional art market, this enables artists to see continued revenue from a work if it goes on to appreciate in value.
To understand just how powerful this is, let’s look at a recent example:
Two years ago, collector Jason Bailey bought an artwork by Robbie Barrat for $176. When it recently sold to another collector, CuriousNfts for $13,265 on the secondary market, Robbie woke up to find that he had automatically been paid $1,326 as part of the transaction. In other words, as continued patronage for his artwork, Robbie received a payment of 7.5 times the original sale amount when the work had gained value and sold to another collector.
It has been thrilling to see this model continue to prove itself over the past two years, and we’re glad that it has become a core part of the broader conversation around digital art in 2020.
Next Stop: The Future
While it is important to reflect on the lessons and milestones of the past two years, the more important question is: what is the future of SuperRare?
Well, we actually have so much to say on that topic that it won’t fit in this blog post. We are working on an upcoming series of posts to lay out our vision for the future of the SuperRare product and community– how to make a truly powerful, sustainable market for digital art.
But as a sneak preview: it includes moving towards more community ownership & participation, enhancing methods of curation and discovery, the personalization of the SuperRare experience, and our plans to grow outside of the crypto art niche and into mainstream adoption of digital collecting.
Let’s Party!
It wouldn’t be a proper SuperRare birthday without a party! It being the dystopian future of 2020 and all, this year we’re keeping our social distance and having a virtual party in the Cryptovoxels virtual world.
When: Friday, April 24th, 2020 (Time TBD)
Where: Cryptovoxels (Exact location TBD)
Stay tuned: In addition to a gathering of the world’s best community, there will be an extra special live auction at the event– details announced soon!
Join The Community
At SuperRare we’re building a social, creative economy on Ethereum.
