# R.A.R.E Art

2018 – 2021 · An early NFT marketplace for limited-edition digital art on Ethereum

A case study from John Zettler's operating record (https://johnzettler.com/building.md).

After seeing CryptoKitties launch, we knew NFT technology could benefit artists creating
natively-digital media — animators, videographers, digital illustrators, designers, and
photographers. We figured they would bring their fans and build collector demand.

We built an original NFT platform for digital artists to mint and sell limited-edition
work, reaching 8,600 monthly active users in 2018 and pioneering the first wave of NFTs —
backed by $1M from Coinbase Ventures, ConsenSys, and others. The Rare Digital Art
Festival we co-hosted in NYC became the seminal gathering of early NFT enthusiasts,
covered by The New York Times.

Demand was hard to come by in the 2018–19 bear market. We built an Apple TV app to
display collections and told our artists' stories to promote their work, but ultimately
put the project aside. The first wave receded; the tide it signaled did not.

## Links

- [My Studio demo — the creator side of the marketplace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph16JXMFuc0)
- [My Collection demo — the collector side of the marketplace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBCpqb9rbQ)
- [Visit the site](https://rareart.io/)

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This page for people: https://johnzettler.com/work/rare-art/
More by John Zettler, for agents: https://johnzettler.com/llms.txt