What Is SuperRare? How the Curated NFT Art Marketplace Works

SuperRare has three layers, and it helps to keep them apart:

• SuperRare Labs Inc. is a Delaware company that owns and runs superrare.com. It describes itself as a non-custodial service provider. It says it is not a wallet provider, exchange, broker or money services business ¹.
• The SuperRare Protocol is the set of Ethereum smart contracts that handle minting, sales, auctions and fee splits ¹.
• The SuperRare DAO is a multisig at superraredao.eth that receives the primary-sale commission and the buyer fee. The Terms say SuperRare Labs does not legally control the DAO. SuperRare Labs does hold administrative rights over some protocol contracts and says it uses them only with the DAO's approval ³.

Platform fees have gone to the DAO treasury rather than the founding team since August 2021 ¹³.

1. Connect an Ethereum wallet. MetaMask, Rainbow and WalletConnect-compatible wallets work, as do embedded wallets from third-party providers. Each wallet address can hold one SuperRare username ⁵. See MetaMask for one example.
2. Buy at a set price, bid in an auction or make an offer. The smart contracts settle the trade and split the payment automatically ²⁴.
3. Pay gas. Collecting, listing, starting an auction and approving the marketplace contract for the first time each cost Ethereum gas. That goes to the network, not to SuperRare ¹⁰. See gas fees.
4. Hold the NFT in your own wallet. SuperRare never holds it for you ¹.

Card payments. You can fund some purchases with a card through a third-party processor, named in the August 2026 Terms as Coinflow. The processor sets its own exchange rates and fees and may run identity checks. Card payments are final, and the Terms prohibit chargebacks ⁶.

Minting. Only approved creators can mint. An artist is approved when a DAO curator, a Space operator or SuperRare Labs adds their wallet to the protocol's registry ⁴. Spaces are separate curated galleries with their own operators and fee splits ⁴¹⁰.

Sources: Terms of Service and help center ²¹⁰. Fees are paid in ETH or other crypto and are non-refundable. Only the DAO's governance process can change them ².

Example (illustrative). A first sale at a list price of 1 ETH costs the buyer 1.03 ETH plus gas. The artist receives 0.85 ETH, and the DAO receives 0.15 + 0.03 ETH. If that collector later resells for 2 ETH, the new buyer pays 2.06 ETH. The seller receives 1.8 ETH and the artist 0.2 ETH. These are arithmetic from the published rates, not market prices.

Limits on royalties. The 10% royalty is applied when a resale goes through SuperRare's contracts. Sales on other marketplaces or private deals may not pay it ⁸¹¹. SuperRare also runs a collector royalty: the first collector earns 1% of later sales, and the share halves for each owner after that. It is funded from the 3% buyer fee, calculated off-chain and credited monthly ¹¹.

RARE is the SuperRare DAO's governance and curation token. Holders can submit SuperRare Improvement Proposals (SIPs), which are discussed on the public DAO forum ¹³. The total supply is 1 billion: 40% to the community treasury, 25.5% to the team, 15% to a retroactive airdrop, 14.5% to investors and 5% to partners. It launched on August 17, 2021 ¹². The official contract address is 0xba5BDe662c17e2aDFF1075610382B9B691296350. Check it before buying or approving any "RARE" token ¹². This page doesn't track the RARE price.

The Terms require you to be of legal age where you live and at least 13. Under-18s may use SuperRare only through a parent's or guardian's account ⁷. You can't use it if you, your wallet or your organization is sanctioned, or if you are located in a jurisdiction under a comprehensive US embargo ⁷. SuperRare Labs may restrict access until you provide requested information ⁷. Ordinary crypto purchases need only a wallet. Card payments go through the processor's identity checks ⁶.

SuperRare Labs can't access, freeze or recover your wallet, including embedded wallets ⁵. Blockchain transactions can't be reversed ¹. Read self-custody if you're new to holding NFTs yourself.

• Signature phishing. Fake mint pages and "airdrop" links ask you to sign approvals that drain wallets. Approve only on superrare.com and read what you sign. See how to avoid crypto scams.
• Third-party contracts. Some NFTs on SuperRare were minted with outside contracts, such as Manifold or Transient Labs. Those are governed by their own terms ¹.
• Smart-contract bugs. The Terms warn that protocol contracts can fail and cause total loss ¹. The 2025 incident below hit a token-staking contract, not the NFT marketplace.
• Value. Prices for art NFTs depend on demand for each artist, and resale is not assured ⁴.