SuperRare Expands Beyond Ethereum NFTs Into Bitcoin Ordinals Artwork

San Diego-based SuperRare is a platform for art creators and collectors backed by the Ethereum blockchain. It specializes in single-edition, 1-of-1 digital works and is one of the longest-running platforms in the NFT world.

SuperRare partnered with Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace Gamma to bring inscriptions to the platform. While SuperRare did not specify the size of the collection coming April 11, 2024, “No Brainers” will continue that trend on Bitcoin and only feature 1-of-1 inscriptions, meaning each piece of art in the collection will be unique, with each Ordinals inscription having a unique image.

Killer Acid is the brainchild of artist Rob Corradetti, whose work often trades in psychedelic themes. Artwork from “No Brainers” has yet to be revealed as of this writing; the image above is derived from an Ethereum NFT piece that Killer Acid minted on SuperRare in 2022 called “Crypto Art.”

“When I first discovered Ordinals last year, it was still in its infancy—all of the setups were manual and required trust. Initially, this turned me off,” Zack Yanger, SVP of SuperRare Labs, told Decrypt in an email.

Yanger said that towards the end of 2023, he took time to dive further into the Ordinals ecosystem and came to understand that there has been “cutting-edge development” in the space since the protocol launched at the start of last year. Substantial infrastructure has been built in the Ordinals space since then.

“At SuperRare, we are always looking for new ways to support our artists in creative ways. After receiving significant inbound interest from our artist community, we’re excited to begin experimenting with Ordinals,” Yanger said.

While Ethereum remains the number one network for NFTs based on trading volume, Bitcoin is heating up as another key place to mint digital artwork and collectibles thanks to the Ordinals protocol launched last year. In fact, Ordinals trading is starting to shake up the market share standings, recently pushing cross-chain marketplace Magic Eden to the top of the list.

“It’s time to bring more artists home to Bitcoin,” Bitcoin NFT marketplace Gamma co-founder Nick Sainato told Decrypt.

“Building in the programmable Bitcoin ecosystem since 2021, it’s been truly exciting watching the unprecedented market and mindshare that has been ushered in by Ordinals over the past year,” he added. “Supporting SuperRare’s entry into Bitcoin has been an honor, as one of the early teams who laid the groundwork for digital assets and established much of the appreciation for fine art on-chain.”

Last year, SuperRare entered the NFT royalties debate, with SuperRare co-founder Jonathan Perkins saying the platform will continue to pay artists a share of secondary market sales after many rival platforms stopped enforcing them.

“We took a fairly controversial move at the time to include artist royalties. What we said is that if we can help artists make any money through royalties, why not try, at least? So we played some part in establishing some kind of a standard, at least for the art side,” Perkins told Decrypt during NFT Paris 2023. “Royalties are not going away on SuperRare.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward