Whale Jumps the Shark?!

Crypto Art Aug 29, 2020

Much to the chagrin of the artists on the plaftorm, and in a series of vaguely accusatory tweets— the at times quite controversial crypto art collector WhaleShark.Pro ends their relationship with SuperRare, vowing to no longer collect from the crypto art gallery.

I apologize to artists who have a current bid from myself, but I will be removing my current bids on @SuperRare_co and leaving the platform permanently.@muratpak @XCOPYART @Prometh29778170 @undeadlu1

I will continue to be active elsewhere, including @makersplaceco.
— WhaleShark.Pro (@WhaleShark_Pro) August 29, 2020

The notable crypto art figure named after a fully aquatic placental marine mammal did express that they would remain active as a collector on MakersPlace. When pressed for details by artists in the community about the reason for leaving, they only hinted that an ongoing issue was not handled to their satisfaction by the SuperRare team.

"...i'm your 4th large collector to leave, something is obviously wrong."

This comes from a collector who has already been firmly against buying from other crypto art platforms, such as KnownOrigin and Rarible.

The sound of ETH whooshing out of SuperRare as a "whale" jumps the shark.

They added in a follow up tweet that "while there is respect," they were the "4th large collector to leave," saying also "something is obviously wrong." without naming those other collectors.

This public airing of dirty laundry doesn't appear respectful, rather the appearance is that one of the most notorious collectors in the space is finding it hard to exert their precise forms of influence (i.e. buy their way into something) over everyone everywhere.

Without full details of the situation, there are only further questions and speculation, but this sort of drama has historically concentrated around this particular so-called "whale" of the crypto art world since they entered the space, so this latest dramatic episode comes as no surprise to anyone who has been around for a while.

The story is not over yet, perhaps there is some chance still for a happy ending to the scenario, otherwise this is likely going to have outcomes similar to these.

Artists that were previously making bank from WhaleShark.Pro (some of whom are named in the tweet shared in this article) will now have one less platform where they can continue to do so.
Artists that were previously making bank from WhaleShark.Pro will have to follw them to a new platform to continue making sales as hinted to by the following tweet.

Not really ;)

You'd be surprised how diversified the space and methods have become.
— WhaleShark.Pro (@WhaleShark_Pro) August 29, 2020

Of course, this tweet could be referring to newer platforms in the space, which have literally just launched in the last months, or artists using their own contracts and tokens, or both.

Whatever the case, there's bound to be more to learn from this developing story...

UPDATE: SuperRare Responds

SuperRare has posted a series of tweets in response, indicating that an artist on their platform engaged in Twitter trolling of WhaleShark.Pro.

1/ We are saddened by this, and wish that we had responded sooner to the Twitter trolling that you experienced.

As community leaders, we have been overdue to publish clear community guidelines– It’s on us that they weren’t yet in place.
— SuperRare 💎 (@SuperRare_co) August 29, 2020

SuperRare also indicated that it would soon be publishing community guidelines to address the issue going forward.