RARA | The Social Curation Protocol

Posted on May 18, 2022Read on Mirror.xyz

The Launch Plan

Updated (June 30, 2022) - This post has been updated to reflect the Genesis Reaction Registry being extended until July 14, 2022.

Updated (May 23, 2022) - This post has been updated to clarify launch dates and add a link to the CC0.dev and the NFT Rights Registry.

It’s almost go time, friends. Six weeks ago we published the Loud Paper describing RARA’s Social Curation Protocol for NFTs. Today, that protocol was deployed to mainnet. Here’s how we’ll bring the protocol to you in our upcoming app for curating NFTs.

In short, The Summer of RA! is coming.

  • Step 1, Protocol Deployment // We’re live!
  • Step 2, Genesis Reaction Registry // May 25th-July 14th, 2022
  • Step 3, The Summer of RA! // July 2022
  • Step 4, Public Launch // August 2022
  • Step 5, Developer Tooling & New Curation Experiences // Winter 2022

A Quick Recap

Before we dive into the launch plan, here’s a quick recap of the protocol.

The goal. Give a voice to a world of curators with NFT-backed Reactions tokens, the Web3 equivalent of a like, emoji, or meme. Some might even call RARA graffiti - a permanent portable, permissionless reputation system for NFTs as set by the fans.

The objectives.

  • Reward discovery and curation of NFTs;
  • Enable personal expression through NFT-backed reactions; and
  • Create public, composable curation data.

The result. A social economy is born.

NFT Fans & Curators. RARA’s Social Curation Protocol allows NFT fans and curators to go long the popularity and virality of NFTs. Fans purchase NFT-backed Reactions and burn them in exchange for Curation Tokens of other NFTs - a permanent Reaction that sticks to the NFT forever. As more reactions are added, the value of the Curation Tokens increases and can be sold for more than the cost of the Reactions spent. Curated NFTs never leave the protocol, allowing for the value of Curator Tokens to fluctuate, giving more potential for NFT fans to make money through open, social curation.

NFT Creators & Collectors. NFT owners and creators* make money either by selling Reactions after registering their NFT as Reactions, and as a royalty when their NFT receives Reactions and is curated.

*Creator earnings are subject to resale royalties set by the creator and supported by the Royalty Registry or, if not set, as detailed by the current NFT owner.

Now to how the launch will work.


Step 1, Protocol Deployment

Today somewhere in the northern hemisphere of a pale blue dot in the Milky Way Galaxy, a group of dreamers, builders, and shadowy super-coders deployed RARA’s protocol to mainnet. The protocol lives on Polygon while a messaging contract lives on Ethereum to support L1 NFTs. We’ll provide more documentation for our open-sourced protocol soon. Here’s a summary of key contracts.

  1. Reaction Registry Contract. NFT owners register their NFTs to sell as “Reactions”, non-transferable, consumable tokens based on the underlying NFT’s media. Reactions are registered with the Reaction Registry Contract on Polygon or via a messaging contract on Ethereum. Reaction tokens are purchased with 1 $USDC and minted on Polygon by users of reactions (“Curators”).
  2. Curation Vault Contract. Curators burn Reactions in exchange for curation tokens minted on Polygon, to react to and curate an NFT. Ethereum or Polygon NFTs may be curated into the Curation Vault Contract directly on Polygon.

Step 2, The Genesis Reaction Registry

OPENING. May 25th at 12:00 PM EDT (5:00 PM UTC)

CLOSING. July 14th at (Midnight) 12:00 AM EDT (5:00 AM UTC)

LOCATION. RARA.social

During the Genesis Reaction Registry period, NFT artists and collectors may register their NFTs in anticipation of selling* reactions in Step 3. Any NFT registered for the Genesis Reaction Registry during this period is eligible for inclusion at launch (anearly mover’s advantage’ to register and sell Reactions). The community will vote to approve reactions to be included in the initial launch. Voting will occur off-chain in RARA’s discord, found at RARA.house.

*NFTs registered with the protocol to sell reactions should grant NFT collectors commercial rights to sell copies or derivative works (e.g., BAYC Terms) or be registered with CC0 as “no rights reserved” and in the public domain. You can search for CC0 NFTs on CC0.dev. For non-CC0 projects, we’ve open-sourced The NFT Rights Registry to catalog NFTs by their copyright, trademark, and other rights. View the NFT Rights Registry.

More details about how to register NFTs and community voting will be released the day of the Genesis Reaction Registry launch.

Step 3, The Summer of RA!

LAUNCHING. July 2022

Curating NFTs with reactions will go live in the app during the Summer of RA! During this period, exclusive early access to curating the most popular NFTs will be limited to the following people:

Genesis NFT Holders. Holders of the Genesis GM, Genesis Curator, or Genesis Fan NFT from the NFT RA!CE will have full access to the app in the app including:

  • Start Curation. the exclusive right to start a curation of an NFT;
  • Exhibiting. Curating NFTs into exhibits; and
  • React & Comment. Buy and burn reactions on curated NFTs in exchange for curation tokens and on-chain comments.

Curator POAP Holders. Anyone who earned a Curator POAPs during the NFT RA!CE will have full access to the app including Start Curation, Exhibiting, and React & Comment.

$RA! Token Holders. Holders of $RA! tokens may React & Comment on curated NFTs and Exhibits.

All other RARA NFTs & POAP Holders. All other holders of RARA minted NFTs or RARA POAPs may React & Comment on curated NFTs and Exhibits.

Creators & Collectors of Curated NFTs & Registered as Reaction. As NFTs are approved by the community as Reactions or the NFT is curated into the protocol, the owners and creators of those NFTs will gain access to RARA to claim the “Maker’s Cut” and “Taker’s Cut”. Maker’s Cut is approximately 5% of reaction sales and “Taker’s Cut” is approximately 5% of each Curation Token minted (See the Loud Paper for more details on fund flows). Additionally, NFT owners and creators will be able to React & Comment on curated NFTs and Exhibits.

Step 4, Public Launch

LAUNCHING. August 2022

After the Summer of RA!, the app will begin opening to the public. First, the public will gain access to React & Comment on curated NFTs and Exhibits. Access to Start Curation and Exhibiting will be earned based on the person’s on-chain reputation as a leader or follower in $TASTE in NFTs (More on this next time).

Step 5, Developer Tooling & New Curation Experiences

LAUNCHING. Winter 2022

As reactions proliferate and the most valuable NFTs are curated into the protocol, the need for new curation experiences and integrating RARA’s protocol into other NFT platforms grows. Later this year, RARA will start working on developer tooling and ways for other builders to create unique curation experiences.

For example, what would reactions look or sound like for a music NFT player? Or, how would you like to engage with cool NFTs in metaverses like Cryptovoxels? We can assure it won’t just be another like button. Where we are going is much farther beyond.


That’s it, friends. LFGooooo! Mark your calendars for May 25th. RA. RA!


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Join our community to continue the Launch Plan conversation at RARA.house.

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Are you an Artist? Get into the Pre-Game minting NFTs to register as reactions and join the action in the #reactions channel in our discord.