Primer: John Crain has always been interested in the intersection of math and creativity. This contributed to his founding of SuperRare, a marketplace and social network for digital art. In this episode of the Zima Red podcast, he shares about his background, his journey into crypto, SuperRare, and his thoughts for the future.
Background
Co-founder and CEO of SuperRare Labs, the entity behind SuperRare
Studied architecture and civil engineering in his undergrad
Learned about Processing and fell into the programming rabbit hole
Moved to New York to work in advertising. Attended meetups and learned about Bitcoin and Ethereum
Worked with ConsenSys for 2 years on an enterprise-focused project
Got really excited when NFT standards were being developed
"When I saw the NFT standards being developed, I got really excited thinking about like basically, everything on the internet has unique ID and so it felt like that NFTs could almost be applied to any type of internet media." - John Crain
Initial Interest In Architecture
Always interested in maths. His mum wrote math textbooks and would always help him with the subject
As a kid, he doodled a lot
Always interested in the intersection of math and creativity. Architecture is a field that merges the two together
What Is Processing?
A programming language that was developed to teach artists how to code
Still have to understand the basics of programming
His Stint In Advertising
Was super fun working in the New York agency world
Was on the creative tech team
Had to pitch crazy and interesting ideas to clients
If they won the pitch, they will be tasked to build the thing that they have pitched to the client
Attending A Bitcoin Meetup
While doing his undergrad, he had to take an econ class. Had zero interest in it
One day, he had a super nice professor who came into class looking upset and announcing that they need to murder bankers
Sparked his interest in finance. Wanted to know what does it mean that the markets are crashing and everyone's losing their money
Years later, when he was in New York, he was still dabbling in finance. Learned about Bitcoin on the internet. Subsequently attended a Bitcoin meetup
"One day he came into the class and he was like, looked super upset, and just announced to everyone, we need to murder these fucking bankers. And everyone is like, oh my god, like what is going on? This is really different from the supply and demand curve we were learning about last Wednesday, and it kind of just like sparked my interest in finance generally." - John Crain
Understanding Ethereum
Took a few months of reading before he really understood Ethereum
When he first started learning about Bitcoin, he came across colored coins, which are layers of abstraction built on top of Bitcoin. With colored coins, additional data can be added to Bitcoin transactions. Had done a little bit of experimentation with Bitcoin's scripting language
In contrast, Ethereum has a smart contract language built-in. Found it a lot more flexible. He can be more creative and write far more sophisticated smart contracts
"The more I learned about Solidity, kind of like, the more I fell in love, and was just like, wow, I think if this works, it's going to be massive, and it's going to completely change the consumer web that we know and understand today." - John Crain
How Did He Know About ConsenSys?
Looking for places in New York that are hiring for blockchain
ConsenSys was the only blockchain-related firm that was hiring on AngelList. Applied for the position but did not get any response
Saw that they were having a hackathon. Went to participate and met everybody. 1 week after the hackathon, he left his job and joined ConsenSys
His Time At ConsenSys
Was a pretty exciting and crazy time to be working in the space
Was definitely a little bit skeptical as to whether Ethereum would work
His job was to spread the word about Ethereum and to educate people about the technology
Learning About NFTs
Have been following the consumer crypto space
Early on, there was the Spells of Genesis game that was built on top of Bitcoin
In the Ethereum space, people were doing art experiments and CryptoPunks
When Dapper Labs published the NFT standard, he got really excited
Inspiration Behind SuperRare
His brother and himself would get together on some weekends and hack on projects
At that time, the most popular app on Ethereum was Ether Delta, a DEX
Decided to build a DEX for trading art
One month after his chat with his brother, he was working on SuperRare full-time
SuperRare
A marketplace and social network for digital art
It's a platform for discovering new artists, collecting art, and showing off your collection
When they first launched, the only people who were interested were artists and a couple of collectors. Their growth was organic
In 2018, he pitched to 120 VCs. All opted not to invest in them
Their Community
Their community is global
Their community members are people who are interested in both art and technology
Early on, they onboarded artists and taught them about wallets, MetaMask, security, etc.
Contemporary art market is exclusionary on purpose
SuperRare is more open and easier to access. They can support a much larger group of artists and collectors
Responses From Contemporary Art Markets
Some said to them that their art was not real art
3 years in, it has become clear that they are serious about growing this space
Have partnered with a number of world-renowned galleries and household name artists like Shepard Fairey
Art world has certainly woken up to the power of NFTs
Calling Themselves A Marketplace And A Social Network
Social media platforms tries to trap users inside their web apps. So early on, he was interested to design a social platform that does not keep users trapped there
A big part of the art collecting experience is to show off your collection, see which artists other collectors are collecting, etc.
Going Down The Curation Route Early On
Did it to ensure that every piece of art is authentic in the marketplace
In any art platform, part of the excitement with art is the storytelling that you get from curators. Putting in the human touch made sense to them
Accelerated Growth In The NFT Space
Growth was due to a couple of different factors coming together
Cryptovoxels had launched and people can build a gallery to show off their art
Launch of Cryptovoxels also coincided with DeFi summer. People had disposable income because DeFi was starting to take off
NFT teams were quietly building in the background
The environment was sort of primed with Cryptovoxels and DeFi happening. People started to take notice that this is serious and it snowballed from there
Path Towards Decentralization
Taking a progressive decentralization approach
SuperRare Labs helped create the RareDAO Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to help grow the SuperRare ecosystem
Previously, SuperRare Labs was the sole development team and curators of the platform
First aspect to be decentralized is the curation system. The first use case for the RARE token is to bring new curators to the SuperRare platform
Announced a new product called SuperRare Spaces, an independently curated part of SuperRare. Empowers people to make their own curatorial decisions
RARE Token
Initial Use Case
Opening up applications to operate SuperRare Spaces. Anyone will be able to propose opening a new space
RARE token holders are going to be able to vote on which space they want to onboard next
Spaces are going to be brought on biweekly. Inspired by Mirror's $WRITE race
Expecting DAOs to operate spaces/art galleries
Keeping spaces open-ended for the community
Evolution Of Their Token
Still figuring out how to use it in the best way
RARE token aligns the incentives of developers with the incentives of artists and collectors on the platform
The DAO will make the decision and SuperRare would evolve
The Metaverse
Views the metaverse as a continuum, with various technologies sitting on that continuum (e.g. Twitter, AR face filters, etc.)
NFTs secure property rights for the metaverse
SuperRare is helping to build out the infrastructure for the metaverse
In the future, every single digital object is backed by an NFT and will have its own historical record. This adds context to digital property
A lot of integrations need to happen in order to push the space forward. SuperRare has been contributing to the space by publishing standards around video NFTs and 3D objects to make the space more transparent
Future Of Digital Art
When people think of art, they think of galleries and museums. The exclusionary nature of art has kept most people out of the ecosystem
This is in contrast to music, which is another art form. People are readily able to share what sort of music they like
Thinks that there's a huge opportunity to bring art to people's everyday lives
Moving forward, people will find their tribe and participate in art communities similar to how they interact with music
"Visual art makes people feel better, right? There's like all these reads like having more beauty in your life is a great thing. And so I think we're kind of seeing the opening up of the art market and having it permeate people's everyday lives." - John Crain
What Sector In NFTs Is He Excited About?
Find avatar projects super fascinating
Surprised at how they have taken off
People have bought them, customized them, and used them as their virtual persona. Avatar projects have product-market fit
How Are NFTs Changing Culture?
They are becoming part of people's everyday life
People are getting excited about visual art
NFTs have reinvented patronage with the internet and is bringing more creativity into culture
Favourite Piece Of Art
Favourite NFT Art
XCOPY's Right-click and Save As guy
Historically important piece. Kind of like an insider joke that pokes fun at skeptics
Thinks that in 10-20 years, it will be in art history books
Favourite Non-NFT Art
Neck Face, a skateboard artist
Does incredible graffiti art that is centered on a horrific and dystopian theme
Single Favourite NFT
Virtual land
Most Controversial Thought On NFTs
Anyone building NFT platforms that are walled gardens is not going to work
For such teams, time would be better spent thinking about how to use open standards to their advantage rather than implementing things that worked in Web2
If He Could Improve One Thing In The Space
The displayability of art/NFTs should be more seamless
Someone He Looks Up To And Why
Buckminster Fuller
He was extremely creative and also an incredibly talented engineer
Is also an author, inventor, and polyglot
He was inventing things and trying to make the world a better place
Wrote a book called Critical Path
NFT Ecosystem In 3 Years
NFTs would have successfully penetrated into different social media aspects
"I think one of the interesting things about NFTs is they're kind of like Trojan horsing crypto into people's lives. Like most people don't care about DeFi or Bitcoin's monetary policy. But people totally understand collecting." - John Crain
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