Rally
Fans bought creator coins on a sidechain shut with less than a day's notice
A platform on which streamers, musicians and other online creators launched their own tradable coins for fans, run on a sidechain of Ethereum and paired with the RLY token.
- Capital raised (announced)
- Estimated
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
- Buyers in the CoinList sale
More than 40,000 participants, reported by CoinList's organisers to CoinDesk and repeated in the company's own announcement. Each purchase was capped at $1,000.
- RLY price against its April 2021 high
- Estimated
RLY peaked at $1.38 in April 2021 and had traded at around $0.01 since October 2022, as reported at the shutdown. The percentage is calculated from those two prices.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2021 CoinList token sale | 2021 | Not disclosed | |
| January 2021 treasury token sale | 2021 | Not disclosed | |
| August 2021 treasury token sale | 2021 | Not disclosed |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin Chou | — | Co-founder and executive director, Bright Saver, a nonprofit that sells plug-in solar kits | Oct 2026 | |
| Mahesh Vellanki | — | Managing partner, SuperLayer, a crypto venture studio | Oct 2026 | |
| Bremner Morris | Apr 2021 – end | Unknown | — | |
| Rob Collier | — | Unknown | — |
Timeline
2018
Backed by venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Canaan, Battery Ventures and Green Bay Ventures. The sidechain was built the same year.
February 2020
Described as a competitor to Cameo.
October 2020
Creators could issue their own coins, which fans bought by card or with crypto.
January 2021
Approved by a community vote and sold through an agent the community appointed. Buyers were not named.
3 April 2021
The sale ran from 1 to 3 April 2021. The founder told CoinDesk the aim was to widen ownership, pointing to about 1,500 holders before the sale.
28 April 2021
The company said more than 100 creators had coins on the network, and promised a beta of an NFT platform the following month.
26 August 2021
Rally was to divide into a Delaware company keeping the name, a Swiss non-profit, a DAO, an Asia-focused creator entity and the venture studio SuperLayer.
August 2022
The chief executive later attributed it to a lack of third-party support and said withdrawals were available again from 1 November 2022 to 24 January 2023.
31 January 2023
Users were told by email that the sunset began that day. The company said it was exploring whether to build leaner products on Ethereum mainnet.
How it ended
Ran out of money
Rally told its users by email on 31 January 2023 that it would begin sunsetting its sidechain that same day, citing a challenging 2022 and macro headwinds too overwhelming to overcome. Its chief executive told Decrypt that funding was the key challenge and that the sidechain, built in 2018, had become very expensive to maintain. The company said NFTs on the sidechain could not be transferred to Ethereum mainnet and would not be accessible once the site shut down. Its X account was reported deleted within about a day.
Still alive
Open spot
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Sources
12 sources behind this page.
- 1Social Token Platform Rally Raises $22M in RLY Sale on CoinList · CoinDesk · Apr 2021
- 2Social Token Project Rally Shuts Ethereum Sidechain, Stranding Users' Crypto Assets · CoinDesk · Jan 2023
- 3Podcast: Interview With Kevin Chou: "I'm A Lifelong Entrepreneur Because I'm Attracted to the Frontier." · Conductive Ventures
- 4Crypto creators' platform Rally shuts down, citing market conditions · crypto.news · Feb 2023
- 5Community-driven crypto project Rally raises $57M to grow creator monetization app · CryptoNinjas (republishing Rally's announcement) · Apr 2021
- 6Social Token Platform Rally Shutting Down · Decrypt · Jan 2023
- 7Mahesh Vellanki, Author at Future · Future
- 8Social token Rally abruptly shuts, user crypto stranded on-chain · Protos · Feb 2023
- 9California-based nonprofit now accepting pre-orders for plug-in solar kits · pv magazine · Jul 2026
- 10Blockchain-Based Creator Organization Rally Raises $57 Million, Plans Eco-Friendly NFT Platform · Tubefilter · Apr 2021
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- 11Creator-Focused Crypto Startup Rally Raises $50 Million, Names Former Patreon Exec Bremner Morris CEO · Tubefilter · Aug 2021
- 12Success Stories | Opening the Door to Solar with Kevin Chou · Work on Climate · May 2026
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.