Rarible in 2023: Recap

2023 is almost over, and yes, it's been a crazy year. After several months of stagnation, it looks like the market is finally coming back to life.

But as nervous as a bear cycle can be, we pay little attention to the charts. Most of our focus has been on the clear cut goal we have set for ourselves at Rarible earlier this year: Prepare for the next bull.

So while the NFT market uptrend will undoubtedly happen at some point in the future, how will it look, exactly?

Well, we have a definite answer (consider it alpha if you want—but not a financial advice): The next cycle will be driven by cheaper NFTs, better UX and communities, both from web3 and web2. It will be all about the availability of NFTs.

So while web3 communities are already here, what about the web2 ones? They are in fact arriving en masse, and this process actually started during a deeper bear when we had a few massive brands launch their NFT initiatives, onboarding their existing communities to web3.

For instance, did you know there are 215,000+ wallets trading HotWheel and Barbie NFTs on Mattel's secondary marketplace powered by RaribleX? That number kept growing even when the NFT volume on Ethereum neared its all-time low.

That is why we're happy about what we accomplished this year, grateful for the support and trust of our community, and super excited for the next year ;)

2023, month by month

Here's the timeline of the most important updates we shipped in 2023:

Now, let's talk about them in more detail:

RARI Chain—Rarible Foundation's fast and low-cost Layer 3 built on top of Arbitrum—will prioritize creators and collectors above all. Embedding royalties on the contract level and boasting minimal gas fees, RARI Chain is currently in testnet, and we can't be more excited. Actually, we can—its mainnet launch, scheduled for Q1 next year, makes us as thrilled as we've ever been.

Another step toward mass adoption of NFTs!

November was arguably the biggest month of 2023 for us as we launched RaribleX, culminating months of work into a transformative phase for the Rarible ecosystem.

RaribleX is a turnkey marketplace solution for both web3 leaders and major brands. In other words, it helps big brands launch NFT marketplaces. Learn more about it here

October saw Rarible introduce a regressive fees structure with an easy way to pay no platform fees whatsoever.

It was also the month we celebrated the free mint of Citizens of Mantle, the L2's inaugural PFP collection made in collaboration with a renowned female photographer and visual artist Chen Man. It has seen over 215,000 $MNT in trading volume since.

Continuing a year of powerful partnerships, we kickstarted the Mocaverse x $RARI rewards program with the help of RARI Foundation: whenever you bid on the Rarible-powered Mocaverse marketplace, you would earn $RARI tokens (by the way—back then, Mocas went for less than 1ETH ;)).

On top of that, we launched Mintle, the first—and objectively the best—NFT marketplace on the Ethereum L2 Mantle network.

August was… difficult for all of us. NFT volume had been bleeding for a few months, and then some of the leading secondary marketplaces announced they were going to start neglecting creators’ rights to royalties by making ‘creator fees’ optional. 

This went directly against our values (and what web3 is truly about), so we chose to adjust our aggregation policy in a way that will ensure that royalties are paid in full on each transaction.

We also launched an entirely free Open Edition mint on Polygon to attract more attention to the issue. The R is for Royalties collection has been minted over 65,000 times since.

In July, the Bat-signal appeared in the dark of web3 (yes, web3 was pretty dark back then). McFarlane’s Batman launched its Year 2 drop of official DC NFTs, made possible by their recently signed partnership with Warner Bros. 

Rarible hosted both primary and secondary sales via McFarlane’s custom marketplace on Polygon. It went out IN MINUTES (yes, in the middle of the bear market).

We also did our first sports project as part of RaribleX as we launched United States Golf Association’s 2023 US Women’s Open ArtBall drop, elevating fan experience with dynamic NFTs.

June

Mocaverse Marketplace, powered by RaribleX

Industry-leading company Animoca Brands needed a platform to host its ever-growing NFT ecosystem.

Needless to say, it partnered with RaribleX to get this platform up and running. A few months later, the Mocaverse marketplace went live in all its glory.

May

Open Editions, Barbie x Boss Beauties collection

Barbie has been empowering people for decades. This year—shortly before the release of the critically acclaimed Barbie Movie—Mattel partnered with Boss Beauties, finding an ideal web3 partner to release Barbie-themed PFPs. 

Together, they launched the Boss Beauties x Barbie NFT collection on the mainstream ready Flow— and we were honored to host it on the Mattel Virtual Marketplace powered by RaribleX.

We also hosted Rarible's Open Edition Festival that month: a 13-consecutive drops festival featuring a variety of artists from different backgrounds. Putting creators at the forefront has always remained our top priority, and you can see regular artist drops on our homepage ever since.

April

Mattel Virtual marketplace & HotWheels NFT Garage

In April, we added two more influential names to our RaribleX client roster: The Smurfs and Mattel’s HotWheels. The first was through the Smurfs’ Society Legendary Collection, with the innovative bucket auction (TL;DR — the community decides the mint price) and custom marketplace launch.

Then, Mattel's legendary Hot Wheels began its web3 journey through the Mattel Virtual Marketplace on Flow that successfully hosted the Hot Wheels NFT Garage collection.

March

Multiple collections on Community Marketplaces

In March, Rarible expanded its community marketplace self-service tool to include multiple collections.

This update allowed for a greater variety of NFT collections on a single platform, supported both on Ethereum and Polygon.

To this day, the community marketplace builder remains one of the easiest ways for creators to launch a home for their collection with protected royalties on native listings.

February

Tezos and Polygon aggregation

Rarible expanded its reach by aggregating Tezos and Polygon, making Rarible.com a great multi-chain entry point into the NFT ecosystem.

As you know, web3 is an extremely dynamic space and a lot has changed since that update. Specifically, we chose to sunset Tezos support on Rarible to focus on other features.

January

Custom self-serve marketplaces on Polygon

We kickstarted 2023 with great news for the L2 NFT enthusiasts: Polygon Community Marketplaces went live, offering no-code, almost fee-free marketplace creation on Polygon. A total of 4,600+ marketplace across both chains have been generated to this day.

What’s coming in 2024?

We know that the next year might be pivotal for NFTs.

We also know that no matter, we will spend yet another year building a future that empowers creators and collectors.

Here's to 2024!