Rarible’s Flow Blockchain Expansion Costs $14.2million

Rarible’s Flow Blockchain expansion has a price, and it’s not very cheap. The NFT marketplace has closed on a Series A investment of no less than US$14.2million, with venture capital firms Venrock and CoinFund leading the funding round.

None of this would have been likely without the exponential rise in non-fungible tokens. Rarible has been a huge beneficiary of the explosive market, with jaw-dropping growth in trading volume. A 3,000 percent increase since the platform launched early-2020, to be exact. Suffice to say, that’s only ever going to look good in the eyes of investors.

Why is Rarible’s Flow Blockchain Expansion Happening Now?

Over the course of this past year, non-fungible tokens have well and truly blown up. This isn’t just a matter of tangible value, either. Thanks to a relentless stream of high-profile music, artistic, and sports collections, the letters NFT are now part of the common consciousness. That means there is a very real and rapidly increasing mainstream demand for these assets.

Rarible has so far relied on Ethereum to run its platform, and this is where the problem lies. As blockchains go, Ethereum is neither the most environmentally friendly nor the cheapest on which to mint NFTs. Each transaction relies on proof-of-work, and fees fluctuate depending on overall network demand.

With this in mind, the move to Flow is understandable thanks to its promise of ‘gasless minting’. Not only will this appeal to people with green issues on their mind, it substantially lowers the cost of participation. And that means the very likely possibility of more people and brands getting involved with NFTs.

What else is Rarible planning? 

As with almost every organisation in the blockchain and crypto space, Rarible has a number of ideas it would like to realise in the near future. The main one here being the launch of a Rarible DAO, or fully Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. DAOs have experienced a resurgence in recent months, and among other things allow users — in Rarible’s case collectors and creators — to make proposals that impact on a platform’s future, and vote on upgrades.

Last summer, Rarible also launched RARI, its own native governance token. This was primarily designed to reward both creators and collectors on the network, and for many months following the July launch could only be earned by using the platform. All that has since changed, meaning RARI is available to buy on several DeFi platforms like Uniswap. Some centralised crypto exchanges, such as Kraken, also trade in the token.

NFT Market Analysis

The non-fungible boom continues at speed, but things may not be quite so rosy in the coming years. Earlier this month reports came in that Fred Ehrsam, founder of Coinbase, has predicted 90% of NFTs will have “little to no value in three to five years”.

If that’s not enough to put would-be buyers off, a recent analysis by Protos should do the trick. According to the crypto news website, the NFT market crash in early June 2021 is a clear sign the entire bubble has burst, or is bursting. This has led some to question whether there is an impending collapse in the value of crypto art.