The Artist’s Journey
In the steadily expanding universe of non-fungible tokens, October 2019 marks a turning point that most of the crypto world barely noticed at the time. Rarible, a fresh-faced Ethereum-based marketplace, officially launched this month with a deceptively simple promise: let anyone create, list, and sell digital collectibles without writing a single line of code. Built on the ERC-721 token standard, the platform arrives at a moment when the total NFT market remains a fraction of what it will become, yet the creative energy bubbling underneath is unmistakable.
The timing is not accidental. Ethereum trades at approximately $173.62 as of October 18, with Bitcoin hovering around $7,973. Gas fees on the Ethereum network remain manageable by later standards, typically between 5 and 10 gwei, making it feasible for artists to mint on-chain artwork without watching their margins evaporate. OpenSea, the dominant marketplace since its December 2017 launch, has just recorded its peak monthly trading volume of roughly $1.8 million in October 2019 — a figure that barely registers compared to 2021 mania numbers but represents a meaningful uptick from the roughly $500,000 monthly volumes that had characterized most of the preceding year.
Rarible enters this landscape not as a clone but as a challenger with a distinct philosophy. Where early platforms catered primarily to crypto-native artists who understood wallet management and gas optimization, Rarible bets on accessibility. The user interface strips away complexity, allowing creators to upload a digital file, set a price or start an auction, and mint an NFT in a matter of minutes. This frictionless approach addresses one of the persistent pain points that has kept traditional artists from entering the space.
Collection Mechanics
At its core, Rarible operates on a straightforward minting process. Artists connect an Ethereum wallet — MetaMask being the most common choice — upload their digital artwork, photography, music, or any other file type, and the platform handles smart contract deployment on their behalf. Each piece is tokenized as a unique ERC-721 token, stored immutably on the Ethereum blockchain, with metadata pointing to the underlying asset stored on decentralized storage.
What distinguishes Rarible’s approach from the more curated platforms like SuperRare or KnownOrigin is its open-door policy. There are no gatekeepers, no application processes, no curator juries deciding whose work deserves to be listed. Any Ethereum wallet holder can become a creator. This democratic ethos resonates with a growing community of digital artists who have grown frustrated with the traditional art world’s gatekeeping mechanisms and see blockchain as a way to bypass institutional intermediaries entirely.
The marketplace supports both fixed-price listings and timed auctions, with payments settled in ETH. Royalties, a concept still being refined across the NFT ecosystem in 2019, can be programmed into each token, ensuring that creators receive a percentage of future secondary sales — a feature that has become one of the most compelling selling points of NFT-based art distribution.
Utility & Perks
Beyond simple buying and selling, the Rarible platform arrives at a moment when the broader Ethereum ecosystem is experimenting with new forms of digital ownership and community engagement. In the same month, OpenSea partners with the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to auction exclusive .eth domain names as NFTs, with notable sales including amazon.eth selling for 100 ETH and invest.eth for 12.6 ETH. These transactions demonstrate that the NFT format extends well beyond visual art into functional digital assets that carry real utility.
For creators, the Rarible model offers several practical advantages. The absence of curation means faster time-to-market for new works. The on-chain royalty mechanism provides a passive income stream that does not exist in traditional art markets. And the global, 24/7 nature of the marketplace removes geographic barriers that have historically limited artists’ access to collectors. A digital artist in Buenos Aires can sell to a collector in Tokyo without a gallery, an agent, or a shipping company.
The platform also benefits from the broader maturation of Ethereum infrastructure. Wallets are becoming more user-friendly, ERC-721 support is improving across major wallet providers, and the concept of digital ownership is gaining cultural traction beyond the original CryptoKitties audience.
Secondary Market Action
While Rarible is still in its earliest days, the secondary market dynamics for NFTs in October 2019 tell an interesting story. OpenSea’s record $1.8 million monthly volume suggests growing liquidity, but the market remains thin compared to traditional art markets or even other crypto sectors. Most NFT sales in 2019 are measured in fractions of an ETH, with standout pieces occasionally reaching double-digit ETH prices.
The Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP), which began issuing attendance-verifying NFTs at ETHDenver in February 2019, has been expanding its footprint through events like EthCC in Paris, EDCON in Sydney, ETHBerlin ZWEI, and most recently DevCon 5 in Osaka (October 8-11, 2019). These POAP tokens, while not tradeable in the traditional sense, demonstrate the growing utility of NFTs as proof of participation and community membership — a use case that intersects with the creator economy in interesting ways.
Espen Kluge, a generative artist whose work bridges traditional gallery exhibition and blockchain-based distribution, exhibits crypto works at Kate Vass Galerie in October 2019, signaling that the bridge between the traditional and digital art worlds is slowly being built. These gallery shows lend credibility to the medium and attract collectors who might otherwise dismiss NFTs as a curiosity.
Final Verdict
Rarible’s October 2019 launch is easy to overlook in retrospect, dwarfed by the billions that flow through NFT markets in later years. But the platform’s founding philosophy — open access, creator empowerment, community governance — plants seeds that will grow into defining features of the NFT ecosystem. At a time when ETH trades at $173.62 and the entire NFT market generates less than $2 million in monthly volume, Rarible represents a bet that digital creators deserve their own marketplace, built on their terms.
The early signals are encouraging. Creator adoption is growing. Infrastructure is maturing. And the fundamental value proposition — verifiable ownership of digital assets with programmable royalties — addresses real pain points that have existed in creative industries for decades. Whether Rarible itself becomes the dominant platform or simply validates the model for others to follow, October 2019 marks the moment when the NFT marketplace landscape begins to diversify beyond a single dominant player.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. NFT markets are highly speculative and illiquid. Readers should conduct their own research before purchasing digital collectibles or investing in cryptocurrency. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
gas at 5-10 gwei. artists could actually mint without going broke. what a concept
OpenSea doing $1.8M monthly volume in Oct 2019. two years later it was doing that in an hour
from $1.8M monthly to $3B in august 2021. the nft market went from a pond to an ocean in under 2 years
Rarible launching with no-code minting was the right idea. most artists dont wanna touch solidity
gas at 5-10 gwei and OpenSea doing 1.8M monthly. the good old days before NFTs became a billion dollar casino
Rarible was early but lost the plot when they pivoted hard into governance tokens. The RARI token distraction cost them their first-mover advantage.
RARI token was a desperate move to compete with OpenSea volume. instead of improving the product they tried to token-gate everything