LooksRare

LooksRare is a community-first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace on Ethereum that rewards traders, collectors, and creators with LOOKS tokens and a share of protocol fees for trading and other participation. Launched on January 10, 2022 with a token airdrop, it was founded by anonymous co-founders known as Zodd and Guts.^[7][3] The marketplace aggregates listings from major NFT platforms, supports NFT raffles and on-chain games such as YOLO and Poke the Bear, and uses a Protocol Rewards system that redistributes platform fees to LOOKS committers.

Overview

LooksRare is an Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace on Ethereum that redistributes trading fees and token incentives to users and creators.^[1]

Users that buy or sell NFTs from eligible collections on the platform can earn LOOKS tokens. LOOKS committers earn Protocol Rewards, which consist of WETH-denominated platform fees and time-limited LOOKS emissions distributed according to a four-phase emission schedule. Creators receive royalty payments at the moment of sale.^[5]

The platform has a 0.5% standard fee on all non-private NFT trades. 100% of these platform fees, collected in wrapped Ether (WETH), are distributed to users who commit LOOKS via Protocol Rewards, with fees consolidated every 6,500 Ethereum blocks and distributed over the following 6,500-block period.^[5][3] Users can also trade NFTs with Ether or wrapped Ether (WETH).

The team has indexed a large number of NFT collections on the Ethereum blockchain, enabling users to trade many of the Ethereum NFTs that are available on OpenSea as well as some that are not.^[2][1] LooksRare also taps into listings from major NFT marketplaces, allowing users to access and purchase NFTs listed elsewhere through a single interface, and it supports NFT raffles and on-chain games such as YOLO and Poke the Bear.^[1]

It was created by two anonymous co-founders, known as Zodd and Guts, with the motto “By NFT People, for NFT People". The platform went live on January 10, 2022 with a token airdrop.^[7][3]

CoinTelegraph stated in a report:

"Within just three days, the NFT marketplace has recorded a sales volume of $394 million".^[2]

The top NFTs that stirred interest among buyers on LooksRare are the Meebits collection, which comes from Larva Labs, the same creators behind Cryptopunks and Autoglyphs. Other popular projects include Loot (for Adventurers), Purrnelopes Country Club and Parallel Alpha.^[2]

History

LooksRare launched on January 10, 2022 on Ethereum, combining the debut of its NFT marketplace with a LOOKS token airdrop distributed to eligible users of competing platforms.^[7] The launch campaign framed the marketplace as a community-focused alternative that would redistribute protocol fees and token rewards to active traders and LOOKS committers.^[7] Within three days of going live, reports citing CoinTelegraph stated that LooksRare had recorded approximately $394 million in trading volume, driven in part by aggressive token incentives that encouraged high-value trades.^[2]

Early activity on the marketplace focused heavily on prominent NFT collections such as Meebits, Loot (for Adventurers), Purrnelopes Country Club, and Parallel Alpha, which featured heavily in coverage of LooksRare’s initial growth.^[2] In October 2022, LooksRare announced that it would make creator royalties optional on secondary sales, allowing buyers to opt in to paying royalties while allocating 25% of protocol fees to creators instead of enforcing royalties by default.^[8] This change aligned LooksRare with a broader industry trend in which several NFT marketplaces reduced or removed mandatory royalty payments.

In February 2023, LooksRare announced a partnership with MoonPay aimed at integrating MoonPay’s NFT Checkout product, enabling users to purchase NFTs on LooksRare using credit cards for both primary and secondary sales.^[9] On April 6, 2023, LooksRare released V2 of the marketplace, which introduced a fixed 0.5% protocol fee and updated smart contracts intended to offer more gas-efficient trading.^[10] V2 continued the platform’s focus on combining marketplace features with a Protocol Rewards system that redistributes platform fees to LOOKS committers.^[10]

Governance

LooksRare is developed by a core team led by pseudonymous co-founders known as Zodd and Guts, who are presented as the marketplace’s co-founders in launch materials.^[7][3] The LOOKS token functions primarily as a utility and reward token for trading, committing, and liquidity incentives, rather than as a formal governance token that confers on-chain voting rights over protocol upgrades.^[6]

Major protocol decisions to date, such as the introduction of a fixed 0.5% protocol fee in V2, the structure and adjustment of reward schedules, and changes to creator-royalty policy, have been announced as initiatives undertaken and implemented by the LooksRare team.^[10][8] Announcements describing these changes attribute the decisions to the team and do not describe an on-chain DAO voting process by LOOKS holders for these specific protocol-level modifications.^[7][10]

Tokenomics

LOOKS Token

The LOOKS token is the native ERC-20 utility token of LooksRare on the Ethereum blockchain. Its main utility is committing LOOKS to earn Protocol Rewards, which include WETH-denominated platform fees and time-limited LOOKS emissions, as well as participating in liquidity provision and trading-related rewards on the marketplace.^[6]​^[3] There is a total and maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 LOOKS.^[3]​

Protocol Rewards were designed to follow a four-phase emission schedule (Phases A to D), with differing LOOKS-per-block rates based on periods of 6,500 Ethereum blocks per day. As the scheduled emissions have largely completed, the WETH-denominated platform-fee component makes up the dominant share of ongoing Protocol Rewards to LOOKS committers.^[6]​^[5]​

Staking LOOKS

LOOKS token committers earn Protocol Rewards from the LooksRare platform. The protocol collects a basic sales fee of 0.5% (in WETH) on all NFT sales excluding private sales, and 100% of these WETH-denominated platform fees are distributed to LOOKS committers.^[5]​^[3]​

All the WETH collected from these fees are consolidated at the end of each recurring 6,500 Ethereum block period (roughly 24 hours) and then distributed to LOOKS committers over the next 6,500 block period as part of Protocol Rewards. In addition to WETH, LOOKS emissions were distributed over four phases, with scheduled decreases in the LOOKS-per-block rate; these emissions were allocated between active and passive committers and are now largely completed, leaving WETH-denominated fees as the main ongoing reward component.^[5]​

Committed LOOKS can remain committed and will continue to accumulate rewards even if they are not claimed every day, and rewards remain claimable until they are collected.^[5]​

Active committers are the majority of committers, whose committed LOOKS tokens are fully unlocked. Passive committers are committers whose LOOKS tokens are locked for trading but unlocked for committing: namely Team, Treasury, and Strategic Sale tokens. Passive committers do not receive additional LOOKS from user-facing emission rewards, although their committed tokens participate in WETH-denominated Protocol Rewards.^[5]​^[4]​

Security and Incidents

LooksRare’s marketplace and associated smart contracts are deployed on the Ethereum blockchain, and trading activity relies on Ethereum transactions and contract execution in line with other Ethereum-based NFT platforms.^[7]​^[3] As an Ethereum application, the platform’s operation depends on the security properties of Ethereum smart contracts and on users interacting with contracts and signing transactions through compatible wallets.

Shortly after launch, the LooksRare website experienced downtime attributed to distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, with service subsequently restored after mitigation efforts.^[11] TronWeekly reported that the platform faced DDoS-related disruptions soon after going live and again in late January 2022, during which access to the marketplace interface was intermittently affected before returning to normal operation.^[11] Security considerations for users of LooksRare are similar to those associated with other Ethereum NFT marketplaces, including exposure to risks related to smart contract behavior and to phishing or malicious activity in the broader NFT trading ecosystem.