Rarible:
the marketplace that built its own chain rather than make royalties optional.
We're continuing our NFT Marketplaces series with Rarible, founded in 2019 by Alexei Falin (CEO) and Alexander Salnikov, and backed by $16 million in venture funding including Coinbase Ventures and CoinFund. We want to flag a real data-quality issue directly: at least one general review we found claims Rarible was "founded in 2009" and that its founders also launched OpenSea in 2017, both factually incorrect, likely a conflation with OpenSea's actual founders, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah. Real, disclosed genuine strengths: no confirmed direct hack of Rarible's own marketplace contracts found in our research, genuinely broad support across 10+ blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tezos, Immutable X, and Base, and RARI Chain, Rarible's own purpose-built Layer 3 designed specifically to guarantee enforced, on-chain royalty payments, a structural alternative to the optional-royalty models we found at both Blur and OpenSea. Real, disclosed distinctive token utility: locking RARI can eliminate trading fees for an account entirely. What we don't think should be glossed over: a real, disclosed, severe decline in trading depth. Rarible reportedly had $263 million in 30-day volume at NFT trading's height, falling to around $385,000 by mid-2022, and a detailed 2026 source states plainly that Rarible is "not the biggest NFT marketplace by volume. Not even close. OpenSea and Blur and Magic Eden all process more trades." We also want to name a separate, unrelated naming collision directly: "Rari Capital," a completely different DeFi lending protocol, suffered a real $80 million hack in 2022, and has nothing to do with Rarible the NFT marketplace; and landed on a score the marketing page won't show you.
Our take, up front: Rarible is a multi-chain NFT marketplace and open-source protocol, founded in 2019 by Alexei Falin (CEO) and Alexander Salnikov, incorporated as Rarible, Inc. in Delaware, and backed by $16 million in venture funding including Coinbase Ventures and CoinFund. We want to flag a genuine data-quality problem we found directly: at least one general review states Rarible was "founded in 2009" and that its founders "launched OpenSea" in 2017, both factually incorrect. OpenSea was founded by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, unrelated people; we're noting this correction so it isn't repeated. Real, disclosed genuine strengths: no confirmed direct hack of Rarible's own marketplace contracts found in our research, genuinely broad support across 10+ blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tezos, Immutable X, and Base, and RARI Chain, Rarible's own purpose-built Layer 3 designed specifically to guarantee enforced, on-chain royalty payments, a real, structural alternative to the optional-royalty models we found at both Blur and OpenSea. Real, disclosed distinctive token utility: locking RARI can eliminate trading fees for an account entirely, and the token itself carries a genuinely scarce, capped supply of 25 million. Real, disclosed genuinely distinctive B2B line: the open-source Rarible Protocol powers custom, white-label NFT marketplaces for other projects that don't want to depend on OpenSea. What we don't think should be glossed over: a real, disclosed, severe decline in trading depth. Rarible reportedly recorded $263 million in 30-day volume at NFT trading's height, falling to around $385,000 by mid-2022, and a detailed 2026 source states plainly that Rarible is "not the biggest NFT marketplace by volume. Not even close. OpenSea and Blur and Magic Eden all process more trades." We also want to name a separate, unrelated naming collision directly, because we found it in our own research: "Rari Capital," a completely different DeFi lending protocol, suffered a real $80 million reentrancy hack in April 2022, and has nothing to do with Rarible the NFT marketplace despite the similar name. We weighted all of it below.
No confirmed direct hack or exploit of Rarible's own marketplace contracts found in our research, one of the cleaner confirmed-incident records in this series so far. Real, disclosed genuine technical investment: RARI Chain, Rarible's own L3, was purpose-built specifically to guarantee enforced, on-chain royalty payments, a distinctive design choice addressing a problem most competitors in this series simply made optional. Real, disclosed naming-collision risk we want to flag directly: "Rari Capital," a completely unrelated DeFi lending protocol, suffered a real $80M reentrancy hack in April 2022, and has nothing to do with Rarible the NFT marketplace.
Pros
- No confirmed direct hack of Rarible's own marketplace contracts found in our research
- RARI Chain built specifically to guarantee enforced, on-chain royalty payments
Cons
- Open, permissionless listings carry the same counterfeit and phishing risks as any competitor
- A separate, unrelated project ("Rari Capital") shares a confusingly similar name and did suffer a real hack
Real, disclosed, extraordinarily severe historical decline: from $263M in 30-day volume at NFT trading's height to around $385,000 by mid-2022, a decline of over 99.8%. Real, disclosed honest 2026 positioning from a detailed source: "not the biggest NFT marketplace by volume. Not even close. OpenSea and Blur and Magic Eden all process more trades." Real, disclosed competing assessment naming "lower overall market liquidity" directly as a listed con.
Pros
- Survived the broader 2022 NFT bear market that this decline reflects
Cons
- Volume fell over 99.8% from its documented 2021-22 peak
- Multiple independent sources describe current liquidity as meaningfully behind category leaders
Real, disclosed named, long-standing founders (Alexei Falin, Alexander Salnikov), incorporated since 2019. Real, disclosed functioning RARI DAO governance with a genuinely scarce, capped supply of 25 million tokens. Real, disclosed credible VC backing ($16M across three rounds, including Coinbase Ventures and CoinFund). Real, disclosed direct assessment from a detailed comparison source: "strong decentralized DAO governance ($RARI)."
Pros
- Named, long-standing founders since 2019; credible VC backing
- DAO governance directly assessed as "strong" by a detailed comparison source
Cons
- At least one general review source contains a factual error about the founders' history
Real, disclosed genuinely broad multi-chain support: 10+ blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tezos, Immutable X, Base, and Rarible's own RARI Chain.
Pros
- 10+ blockchains supported, including a proprietary chain built for royalty enforcement
Cons
- Liquidity fragments across networks, complicating price discovery for the same collection
Real, disclosed genuinely accessible design: a clean, straightforward interface, credit-card purchase support (NFTs sent to a wallet post-purchase), and a distinctive Adobe partnership producing content credentials that verify artist authorship and reduce fraud. What tempers this: real, disclosed direct caution from a detailed source that Rarible "markets itself as beginner-friendly, but blockchain mechanics... require real research," and liquidity fragmentation across chains complicates price discovery.
Pros
- Credit-card purchase support; clean, straightforward interface
- Adobe content-credentials partnership helps verify artist authorship
Cons
- Liquidity fragmentation across chains complicates price discovery for the same collection
Real, disclosed competitive ~1% fee on each side for native listings. Real, disclosed genuinely distinctive royalty-enforcement mechanism via RARI Chain, a real structural alternative to the optional-royalty models at Blur and OpenSea. Real, disclosed distinctive fee-elimination mechanic: locking RARI tokens can eliminate trading fees for that account entirely. What tempers this: a real, disclosed "regressive fee model" where smaller trades face proportionally higher costs, and aggregated listings carry separate, source-dependent fee ranges.
Pros
- RARI Chain guarantees enforced royalties rather than making them optional
- Locking RARI can eliminate trading fees entirely, a genuine token-utility mechanism
Cons
- A disclosed regressive fee model means smaller trades face proportionally higher costs
Real, disclosed genuinely distinctive open-source Rarible Protocol, powering custom, white-label NFT marketplaces for other projects that don't want to depend on OpenSea. Real, disclosed customizable brand storefronts for DAOs and enterprises. Real, disclosed Adobe content-credentials partnership.
Pros
- Open-source protocol powers custom marketplaces beyond Rarible's own consumer site
- Customizable brand storefronts for DAOs and enterprises
Cons
- This B2B infrastructure line is less visible to typical consumer users
Access only through Rarible's official site, and don't confuse it with the unrelated "Rari Capital" DeFi protocol.
Given the real naming collision we found in our own research, double-check that any security news, hack report, or warning you come across actually references Rarible the NFT marketplace and not Rari Capital, an unrelated DeFi lending protocol that suffered a real $80M hack in 2022.
The platform that kept its principles, and paid for it in the one number that matters most.
We think Rarible deserves real credit for a choice most of its competitors didn't make. When the rest of the category responded to competitive pressure by making royalties optional, Rarible built its own blockchain specifically to keep them enforced. When most governance tokens in this series turned out to carry voting rights without any real economic utility, Rarible tied its own token directly to a genuine fee-elimination mechanism. That's a real, disclosed, principled set of choices, and we don't think it should go unrewarded just because it wasn't the growth-maximizing path. But we also can't pretend a marketplace that's fallen over 99.8% from its own peak, and that a detailed 2026 source says plainly trails every major competitor "not even close," is competing on equal footing with the platforms we've reviewed so far in this series. Rarible built the version of an NFT marketplace that creator advocates have been asking for. The market, so far, hasn't rewarded it with the volume to match.
The scorecard above is deliberately general. Whether Rarible is right for you depends heavily on which of these you already are.
The creator who specifically wants guaranteed, enforced royalty payments rather than an optional model
This is exactly where Rarible's genuinely distinctive RARI Chain design delivers real, demonstrated value.
The active RARI holder who locks tokens specifically to eliminate their own trading fees
This is a genuine, disclosed utility mechanism most competing governance tokens in this series simply don't offer.
The user who double-checks that any Rarible security news doesn't actually reference the unrelated Rari Capital protocol
Given the real naming collision we found in our own research, this specific check genuinely matters here.
Traders who prioritize deep liquidity and fast execution above all else
OpenSea, Blur, and Magic Eden, all reviewed earlier in this series, currently offer meaningfully deeper order books.
The scorecard covers the headline judgment calls. These four tables cover the specifics we didn't want to bury in prose; Rarible vs. Rari Capital named precisely, the volume decline chronology, royalty enforcement compared across this series, and the fee mechanics explained.
Rarible vs. Rari Capital: two unrelated projects
| Rarible | Rari Capital | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | NFT marketplace and protocol | DeFi lending protocol (Fuse pools) |
| Founded | 2019, by Alexei Falin and Alexander Salnikov | Unrelated founding team |
| Security history | No confirmed direct hack found in our research | $80M reentrancy hack, April 2022 |
We're naming this distinction directly because the similar names create real, genuine confusion online; a hack of Rari Capital is not a hack of Rarible the NFT marketplace, despite occasional conflation in casual discussion.
The volume decline, chronologically
| Period | Approximate 30-day volume |
|---|---|
| NFT trading's 2021-22 height | $263 million |
| July 2022 (per dApp Radar) | ~$385,000 |
| 2026 (per a detailed source) | Meaningfully behind OpenSea, Blur, and Magic Eden, "not even close" |
A decline of over 99.8% from peak to mid-2022 is among the most severe volume declines we've documented across any platform in this series, and current sources suggest the gap to category leaders has persisted rather than closed.
Royalty enforcement, compared across this series
| Rarible | Blur | OpenSea | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royalty model | Enforced on-chain via RARI Chain | 0.5% minimum enforced; remainder optional | Fully optional |
| Mechanism | Purpose-built proprietary L3 | Marketplace-level minimum | ERC-721C supported where adopted |
| Disclosed creator impact | Designed specifically to protect creator income | Contributed to the 2023 "royalty wars" | Directly, disclosedly damaged creator relations, per a detailed source |
Of the three marketplaces reviewed so far in this series, Rarible is the only one that built dedicated infrastructure specifically to make royalty enforcement structural rather than optional or minimum-based.
How the RARI fee-lock mechanism works
| Detail | |
|---|---|
| Standard native fee | ~1% per side (buyer and seller) |
| RARI-lock benefit | Locking RARI can eliminate Rarible's own trading fees for that account, per a help-article-sourced claim |
| What remains | Network gas fees still apply regardless of RARI-lock status |
| Aggregated listings | Follow a separate, source-dependent fee range rather than Rarible's native rate |
This is a genuinely direct link between holding the governance token and receiving a real, measurable, ongoing benefit, a form of disclosed token utility we found less clearly established at other platforms in this series.
We don't just want to hand you our number; we want to show you how it sits next to what other review desks and comparison sites have published. We're flagging directly that we found a real factual error in at least one comparison source (Cryptonews) regarding Rarible's founding history, and we've corrected it rather than repeating it in our own score.
Our score lands closely aligned with the aggregated industry average, one of the smallest gaps we've found across this NFT marketplace series; most sources we found independently credit the same royalty-enforcement and governance strengths we weighted, while also acknowledging the same real liquidity gap.
| Source | Score | Type |
|---|
Scores compiled by our editorial team from publicly available reviews as of August 2026. "Editorial estimate" means the outlet didn't publish a single numeric score, so we converted their published verdict and sentiment into a comparable 100-point figure. Verify current figures directly with each source before citing them elsewhere.
No. Rarible is an NFT marketplace and protocol. Rari Capital was a completely unrelated DeFi lending protocol that suffered a real $80 million reentrancy hack in April 2022. The similar names create real, genuine confusion online, but the two projects have no connection.
Alexei Falin (CEO) and Alexander Salnikov founded Rarible in 2019, incorporated as Rarible, Inc. in Delaware. We found at least one general review incorrectly claiming a 2009 founding date and a connection to OpenSea's founders; that claim is false.
RARI Chain is Rarible's own Layer 3 blockchain, purpose-built to guarantee enforced, on-chain royalty payments, a structural alternative to the optional-royalty models adopted by Blur and OpenSea.
Native listings carry roughly a 1% fee on each side (buyer and seller). Locking RARI tokens can eliminate Rarible's own trading fees for that account entirely, though network gas fees still apply. Aggregated (non-native) listings follow a separate, source-dependent fee range.
Rarible reportedly recorded $263 million in 30-day trading volume at NFT trading's height, falling to around $385,000 by July 2022, a decline of over 99.8%. A detailed 2026 source states Rarible remains meaningfully behind OpenSea, Blur, and Magic Eden in current volume.
10 or more blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tezos, Immutable X, Base, and Rarible's own RARI Chain.
An open-source protocol that powers custom, white-label NFT marketplaces for other projects that don't want to depend on OpenSea or another third-party platform, a distinctive B2B infrastructure line beyond Rarible's own consumer marketplace.
No confirmed direct hack or exploit of Rarible's own marketplace contracts was found in our research.
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