SuperRare has grown to support a diverse ecosystem of artists since its beginnings in 2018, with $75M+ of art collected and $2M+ in artist royalties paid to date.

While highly impactful for thousands of early artists, collectors, and community members, SuperRare’s progress to date is minuscule compared to how large the internet art market will become.

In order to scale up consciously and harness the true power of web3, SuperRare is embarking on a path of progressive decentralization – shifting ownership and governance of the network into the hands of the community.

As of August 2021, SuperRare began this transition of governance to its community of artists, collectors, and curators via a new SuperRare governance token, $RARE, and the SuperRare DAO. Welcome to SuperRare 2.0, the next chapter of art on the internet.

DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. They are self-governing entities that establish transparency in decision-making and fund allocation in order to decentralize the power of a momentous community. The goal of “decentralizing” is to protect from power resting in the hands of few and to instead distribute governance to all participating members.

DAOs are powered by community participation via governance tokens. Members of the community who hold governance tokens can use them to vote on issues and decisions that affect the organization. With the beginning of the SuperRare DAO, this will be done so with $RARE, the new SuperRare curation token.

The SuperRare DAO treasury will be funded by all marketplace fees that take place. Historically, the value from fees and commissions on the platform has gone to the founding team to fund ongoing operations and continued growth. As of August 2021, 100% of these fees are being diverted to a new DAO treasury.

On the organizational side, control over the SuperRare DAO will progressively transition to the community of artists, collectors, and curators through $RARE.

For a detailed overview of $RARE and its initial distribution, check out the official SuperRare Network Docs.

In these beginning days of the SuperRare DAO, $RARE holders will be able to advocate for new updates by submitting SuperRare Improvement Proposals (SIPs), with a focus on ushering in our very first Spaces.

Debate and consideration of potential SIPs will take place on our public SuperRare DAO Forum.

To read more about how SuperRare governance currently works, please visit our DAO Hub!

For updates on when townhalls and public meetings are happening, follow @sr_gov on Twitter for updates on live happenings as well DAO news.

In addition to governance, $RARE will increasingly serve to incentivize participation and guide curation within the SuperRare network. While these initiatives are not yet live, governance may vote to allocate $RARE tokens as they see fit towards developing different aspects of the platform. We look forward to introducing more new features and proposed ideas to you soon.