{"id":4496,"date":"2020-03-08T12:35:33","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T16:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/?p=4496"},"modified":"2020-03-08T12:45:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T16:45:19","slug":"6-questions-for-john-crain-of-superrare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/2020\/03\/08\/6-questions-for-john-crain-of-superrare","title":{"rendered":"6 Questions for John Crain of SuperRare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each week we ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!<\/em><\/p>\n

Each participant then gets to remove one blockchain question \u2014 and a personal one \u2014 and they can substitute in two of their own for the next victim.<\/em><\/p>\n

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This week’s guest is John Crain, co-founder and CEO of SuperRare. <\/b>SuperRare is a marketplace for collecting and trading unique, single-edition digital artworks. Each artwork is authentically tokenized by an artist in the network, and is a digital item that buyers can own and trade<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to SuperRare, John led product for the ConsenSys spoke BlockApps, working with Fortune 500 companies exploring use cases for smart contracts and leveraging open data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before falling down the crypto rabbit hole, John worked in advertising as a creative technologist for Digitas North America. There he designed and built everything from apps that order you coffee, to interactive games that teach children about sustainability.<\/span><\/p>\n

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1 \u2013 What has been the toughest challenge you\u2019ve faced in our industry so far?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The toughest thing I\u2019ve faced in our industry is getting people to understand art collecting. Collecting art and designing crypto networks are quite different things. Early on we got lots of feedback that it wouldn\u2019t work because it wasn\u2019t logical, which is funny. Collecting art is an emotional experience, and is done within the context of a community. People in crypto are focused on networks where you can\u2019t trust anyone. In art you need to be able to trust people. So there\u2019s this interesting paradox at play.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2 \u2013 What do you drive\u2026 and what would you drive (or what other mode of transport would you use) if you had no restrictions on your choice?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

My main modes of transportation are a beach cruiser bicycle and skateboard. If I had no restrictions I\u2019d probably drive a catamaran. I love to sail.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3 \u2013 What does \u2018inclusion\u2019 in the blockchain industry mean to you?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

To me inclusion means making things accessible. At SuperRare, we see art collecting as an activity and a market that is not accessible to the vast majority of people. With digital collecting, all you need is an internet connection. Traditional art markets are extremely exclusive, we\u2019re helping creatives and art enthusiasts around the world gain access to a new art market.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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4 \u2013 If you were to retire today with $5M in liquid assets, what would you do with your time?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love what I am doing and what we\u2019re building so it\u2019s hard to imagine doing something else. I guess if I had to choose I\u2019d spend my time growing my art and house plant collection. I\u2019d also volunteer my time assisting in ocean cleanup initiatives. We all share one ocean and it\u2019s such a vital part of our ecosystem.<\/span><\/p>\n

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5 \u2013 If you could have any career you wanted, what would you be doing?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building SuperRare of course! All joking aside what brought me into the crypto space was the potential to build digital tools that benefit the communities using them. Instagram and Youtube are amazing, however the upside is captured by Facebook and Google. I want to build things that bring positive change to people’s lives. I think we can do this with great UX and more equitable business models.<\/span><\/p>\n

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6 \u2013 What are you personally doing that\u2019s unique in the blockchain space?<\/b><\/p>\n

We\u2019re turning the data aggregation business model for social networks on its head. SuperRare is a social network for digital art. We\u2019re creating an ecosystem that gives artists new income streams, and at the same time gives collectors tools to discover art that\u2019s meaningful to them. I think what we\u2019ve built has the potential to go mainstream and onboard millions of people to crypto.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

John chose to replace questions 2 and 6 … so next week we’ll ask:<\/em><\/p>\n

What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever visited, and why?<\/p>\n

What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the rest of 2020?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each week we ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[155,154],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4498,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions\/4498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4496"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}