SuperRare has become a top-notch NFT platform with over $250M worth of digital art collected and $3M in artist royalties paid out. Originally, SuperRare 1.0 had a core team that hand-picked and approved artists to mint their works on a shared smart contract as SuperRare NFTs. However, SuperRare 2.0 introduced web-scale curation, independently run storefronts on the platform, and sovereign minting contracts. This allowed artists to mint, promote, and sell their works directly to collectors. By adopting a path of progressive decentralization, SuperRare has transferred ownership and governance of the network to the community. SuperRare 2.0 is now a DAO, which is a decentralized organization that oversees platform parameters, allocates funds from the Community Treasury, and votes on proposed improvements to the network and protocol.

Creating a social network for crypto art has the objective of providing a transparent record of ownership for digital collectibles. It is an ideal platform for assessing the value and context of items in the marketplace. The network aims to solve problems such as a lack of support for artists, a fragmented ecosystem of NFTs, and a single team doing the curation and gatekeeping.

To address these issues, SuperRare has introduced SuperRare Spaces. These Spaces can operate independently on the network, curate art and artists, run auctions, promote sales, and collect commissions.

SuperRare started as version 1.0, where a core team handpicked artists to mint their works on a shared smart contract as SuperRare NFTs. SuperRare 2.0 introduced web-scale curation, allowing artists to promote, mint, and sell their works directly to collectors through independently run storefronts on the platform. Furthermore, SuperRare 2.0 has become a DAO, giving control to the community, which governs and allocates funds from the Community Treasury, and votes on key platform parameters and proposed network improvements.

SuperRare's 2.0 version addressed three key problems in the NFT art ecosystem. Curation and gatekeeping by a single team hindered scalability, while artists deserved more support than a single team could provide. Additionally, the ecosystem was fragmented, making it difficult to manage collections. To solve these problems, SuperRare introduced SuperRare Spaces, which are independently-run storefronts on the platform. Each Space can launch its own branded token and curate art and artists, promote sales, run auctions, and collect commissions. Artists can also deploy a custom NFT minting contract to become their own sovereign creative platform. This allows each Space to become its own sovereign crypto art gallery.

The community of artists, collectors, and curators will gradually take over the curation process through the introduction of a new token called RARE. SuperRare Labs aims to incentivize community members to actively curate and empower them as the network evolves. RARE will allow the community to govern certain network parameters such as Spaces, commissions, and grants, paving the way for full on-chain curation in the future.