RARE is the native token of SuperRare, a marketplace for curated non-fungible token (NFT) art.

RARE launched in August 2021 at the tail end of the NFT boom of 2020/2021. It rose sharply at launch, from 58 cents on August 17 to $3.12 on August 28. After a lull of about two months, RARE hit its all-time high of $3.64 on October 11 in a single-day spurt. The token fell to $1.89 five days later and gradually sank over the next seven months, falling as low as 13 cents on May 12, 2022.

SuperRare launched RARE as an Ethereum ERC-20 token with a maximum supply of 1 billion. Nintey days after it started trading, those who had used SuperRare could claim some of the 150 million RARE tokens distributed in a retroactive airdrop. The community treasury, governed by the SuperRare decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), was awarded 100 million RARE at launch and will receive a further 300 million over the next four years.

The founding team and core contributors received 255 million RARE, and investors received 145 million RARE. These tokens were subject to a three-year vesting period; distributions start in August 2022. A final 50 million RARE tokens were earmarked for future contributors and partners.

RARE is the governance and utility token for SuperRare, an NFT marketplace. NFTs are artworks represented as unique cryptocurrency tokens. On Ethereum, the network supported by SuperRare, these NFTs are known as ERC-721s.

SuperRare launched in 2018 as one of the first NFT marketplaces. While other platforms let anyone display NFTs, SuperRare was selective about which artists could mint NFTs on its site.

Artists can mint an NFT on SuperRare, but secondary sales can take place on any NFT marketplace. SuperRare takes a 15% commission on primary sales and a 10% commission on all secondary sales.

According to a dashboard on Dune Analytics, trading volume on SuperRare hit highs of $29 million in March 2021. Monthly trading volume fell to $2.7 million in June before peaking at $37 million in October of that year. These figures are dwarfed by the market leader, OpenSea, which peaked at $4.9 billion in January 2021, according to another dashboard on Dune Analytics.

SuperRare Labs was founded in 2017 by CEO John Crain and his brother, Chief Technology Officer Charles Crain, as well as Chief Product Officer Jonathan Perkins.

SuperRare Labs launched a seven-person governing council for the SuperRare DAO. The council executes governance decisions. John Crain is among the six members of the council whom RARE holders can replace at will.

RARE is the platform’s governance token. It is used to vote in SuperRare’s DAO, as well as Spaces – galleries curated by RARE holders in recurring votes. Votes take place on Snapshot.

Following the rollout of an upcoming update called SuperRare 2.0 (no release date as of yet) members of the DAO will eventually be able to determine which artists should join the platform. They can already submit proposals for protocol updates. These proposals are called SuperRare Network Improvement Proposals (SNIPs).