SuperRare launches

In April, SuperRare, one of the oldest surviving crypto art marketplaces, launched its beta smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. Founded by a small team in Brooklyn, SuperRare aimed to make art collecting as accessible as buying stocks or posting photos online. Inspired by projects previously covered on this Timeline like CryptoPunks and Rare Pepe Wallet, SuperRare enabled select artists to issue art work on their platform. The platform quickly garnered interest, with Jason Bailey making the first purchases from Robbie Barrat’s AI Generated Nude Portrait series. Later in the year—and this Timeline—Bailey, Barrat and SuperRare would give away 300 of these pieces in person at Christie’s First Art + Tech Summit, the infamous Lost Robbies. SuperRare was only modestly successful in its first year, facilitating over 1,124 primary sales yet only $91,000 in first-year sales volume and around 550 ETH in total volume. These muted figures demonstrate—even in the ninth chapter—how early we still are in this story. The platform’s release, however, marks a significant milestone in the story of generative art in this decade.