sep 9, 2016 - RAREPEPE

Description:

Looking through a historical lens, RAREPEPE is considered an integral part of the birth of the global cryptoart movement as it is the first project on Counterparty to invite any artist from anywhere in the world to participate.

The project centers around a central theme of an internet meme called 'Pepe' that was originally a character in a comic titled 'Boy's Club' by Matt Furie. Some of the initial posts about this project came from the Bitcointalk forums.

Series 1, Card 1 of The Rare Pepe Directory is titled 'RAREPEPE' and was minted by a user named 'Mike' with the description stating: 'The most rare pepe that has ever existed'.

In the early days, the cards from this project were primarily traded on the Counterparty Decentralized Exchange directly for PEPECASH, XCP and even card for card orders. This primary currency (PEPECASH) not only was supported by centralized exchanges like Tux Exchange and Zaif, but was one of 12 cryptocurrencies officially approved by Japanese Government in 2017.

PEPECASH was originally distributed to holders of RAREPEPE, GOXPEPE, and SHITCOINCARD. A portion of PEPECASH was also donated to FoldingCoin miners. After some giveaways on Twitter and in the Rare Pepe Telegram chat, the rest was burned, which ended up being about 300 Million units.

A burn or 'destruction' of 2100 PEPECASH was required at the time of approval for each artwork submission in the directory.

The option to buy, sell and trade pepe cards were offered in the Book of Orbs wallet alongside projects of the time like Spells of Genesis, Bitgirls and many others.

Rare Pepe even had a project specific wallet called The Rare Pepe Wallet developed by Joe Looney.

There is a significant amount of culture, Counterparty firsts and deep lore from this project Many artists featured in the directory are still very active in the cryptocurrency community to this day.

The project was closed in February of 2018 ending with 1774 different distinct pieces of art regarded as 'The Rare Pepe Directory'. Many include references to cryptocurrency culture, internet culture and pop culture, political memes, art history and one of a kind artworks. This was somewhat also the case as per the art in Spells of Genesis, but this time from many different worldwide artists.

Many projects emulating this 'open arms artist invitation' have been created since including, but not limited to: 'Fake Rares' and 'Dank Rares'.

While there is reference to 'Pepe' in a previous token description named CLIO, RAREPEPE was the first to include Pepe artwork represented by a Counterparty token and definitely wasn't the last to do so.

Issuer: Mike

Added to timeline:

Date:

Images: