Johannes Vogt of Artnet Auctions on the Market History of Rare Pepe NFTs

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The Rare Pepe project, a series of illus­tra­tions of the inter­net-famous Pepe the Frog char­ac­ter, made a splash long before NFTs became a glob­al phenomenon.

In Octo­ber 2016, memes made their way to the blockchain through a plat­form called Coun­ter­par­ty. The move was rev­o­lu­tion­ary: More than 300 artists from around the world cre­at­ed their own dig­i­tal art­works. In 2021, some of Rare Pepes’ found­ing mem­bers infused the project with new life, pro­duc­ing more than 250 dig­i­tal works, many of which are ani­mat­ed and include orig­i­nal sound­tracks. Thus, a new series, Fake Rares, was born.

To cel­e­brate the inno­v­a­tive spir­it of the Rare and Fake Pepe move­ments, Art­net Auc­tions is proud to host an on-chain sale of the NFTs. Addi­tion­al­ly, as a token of appre­ci­a­tion to all par­tic­i­pat­ing bid­ders, Art­net will air­drop a new­ly released NFT, REALFAKEART, by artist Viva La Van­da. This work is in the Fake Rares direc­to­ry; it can­not be pur­chased and is only dis­trib­uted via this auction. 

On the occa­sion of “Art­N­FT: Feels Rare Man,” we sat down with Johannes Vogt, head of NFT and dig­i­tal art sales at Art­net Auc­tions, to dis­cuss the gen­e­sis of Rare Pepes, his first for­ay into NFTs, and the ways that this auc­tion reflects Artnet’s inno­v­a­tive ethos.

 

When did you first learn about Rare Pepe NFTs? 

I first learned of Rare Pepes in a con­ver­sa­tion with the col­lec­tor Toke­nAn­gels. He got into the project fair­ly ear­ly and is the hold­er of the Pepe “grail” HOMERPEPE. He moti­vat­ed me to cre­ate a Coun­ter­par­ty wal­let and end­ed up gift­ing me my first Pepe!

Who cre­at­ed the first Rare Pepe? How did the phe­nom­e­non grow from there?
The “Series 1, Card 1” Rare Pepe is fea­tured in our sale under the title RAREPEPE. It shows the infa­mous cre­ator of Bit­coin, Satoshi Nakamoto. 

For those who aren’t famil­iar, what is Coun­ter­par­ty? Why is it sig­nif­i­cant that Rare Pepes got their start on that platform?

Coun­ter­par­ty evolved from Bit­coin as a sub­chain that allowed for art­work assets to be trad­ed. To this day it offers func­tion­al­i­ty that is some­what supe­ri­or to most oth­er chains (as is exem­pli­fied by a new work by Dim Zayan in our cur­rent auc­tion) and equal­ly pro­vides a sen­ti­ment of nos­tal­gia since it emerged before the Ethereum blockchain and the NFT hype at large.

"Luca,

How can users col­lect these Rare Pepes and Fake Rares if they are not famil­iar with Coun­ter­par­ty?
It’s a wild jour­ney. Buy­ing assets on Coun­ter­par­ty can cause you some seri­ous anx­i­ety. You have to go via a so-called dis­penser that’s often described as a vend­ing machine. The scary part is that the vend­ing machine will take your change even when it’s emp­ty. Much bet­ter to buy at Artnet!

Trad­ing Rare Pepes began as a game among collectors—like vir­tu­al trad­ing cards. How does this gam­i­fi­ca­tion impact the cur­rent mar­ket for Pepes?
I think it’s impor­tant to point out that Pepes them­selves are not part of a game, as the Spells of Gen­e­sis cards are for exam­ple. Rather, the game in and of itself was and is about col­lect­ing and trad­ing. The visu­al appeal of a card, such as a base­ball card, is appar­ent and intentional.

Does this gam­i­fi­ca­tion vary from oth­er NFT projects?
Phew… I would say yes, sub­stan­tial­ly. Coun­ter­par­ty assets are all about hid­den func­tion­al­i­ty and the sur­prise fac­tor, some­thing that has been adopt­ed lat­er on by Ethereum-based projects. The sin­gu­lar­i­ty of so-called sub-assets on Coun­ter­par­ty, how­ev­er, is unpar­al­leled to my knowledge. 

How can peo­ple bid on the Rare Pepes and Fake Rares in Artnet’s auc­tion?
Just hit the bid but­ton. Plain and sim­ple. It will require a Meta­mask wal­let and ETH currency. 

What first intrigued you about NFTs? What was your expe­ri­ence like when you tried to buy NFTs?
I’ve been a fan of dig­i­tal art ever since I got excit­ed about con­tem­po­rary art in the ear­ly 2000s. My “aha” moment was when I real­ized that NFTs were not actu­al­ly a new art form but rather a new way of authen­ti­cat­ing and prov­ing own­er­ship of any dig­i­tal asset, includ­ing dig­i­tal art­works. It’s revolutionary!

What dif­fer­en­ti­ates Rare Pepes from Fake Rares?
A good and cru­cial ques­tion for this sale. Rare Pepes as a project con­clud­ed in ear­ly 2018. The offi­cial Rare Pepe direc­to­ry is closed, no fur­ther cards can be added to it. Fake Rares start­ed out as a break-out project from the Rare Pepe Telegram chan­nel and soon after found broad appre­ci­a­tion by the Pepe com­mu­ni­ty at large. 

Every­one was excit­ed to see Pepes live on. The most strik­ing proof of that can be found in “Series 0” of the Fake Rares. All cards from that series were actu­al­ly cre­at­ed before Fake Rares were estab­lished. The art­works were either reject­ed or not sub­mit­ted to the Rare Pepe cura­to­r­i­al com­mit­tee, who are referred to as the “sci­en­tists” with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. It is telling that the ini­tial releas­es of Fake Rares were actu­al­ly meant to be Rare Pepes. 

Each of the works in Feels Rare Man holds a sig­nif­i­cant back­sto­ry in the Rare Pepe community—can you speak to this?
That would fill an evening of con­ver­sa­tion and at least one bot­tle of red wine.

Mike, RARE PEPE (Series 1, Card 1, Issuance 300) (2016). Included in bundle lot Rare Pepe Series 1 (Golden Grail Collection). Available now in ArtNFT: Feels Rare Man.

Mike, RARE PEPE (Series 1, Card 1, Issuance 300) (2016). Includ­ed in bun­dle lot Rare Pepe Series 1 (Gold­en Grail Col­lec­tion). Avail­able now in “Art­N­FT: Feels Rare Man.”

This sale includes nev­er-before-seen Fake Rares. What is the process like for cre­at­ing a Fake Rare? How does it get list­ed in the Fake Rare Direc­to­ry?
The Fake Rare Direc­to­ry is guard­ed by La Faka Nos­tra, an undis­closed group of individuals—a mys­tery if you will—that deter­mines the com­po­si­tion of each series that is being released. 

Who are some key fig­ures and artists to watch in this space?
Scril­la, Indeli­ble, Rob­ness, Pepe­nar­do, Dim Zayan, and of course mera.ki, who dropped her most recent work in our sale and sold out in a heartbeat. 

How do the Rare Pepe and Fake Rare projects align with Artnet’s ethos and posi­tion at the fore­front of the online art mar­ket?
My inter­est real­ly spiked because this is a project dri­ven by artistry. Imag­ine it as an open call to all artists around the world to cre­ate a work that some­how fea­tures the Pepe meme in any kind of way. It’s both lim­it­ing and end­less­ly inspir­ing. Every card is a unique art­work that real­ly sets the Pepe works apart from the 10,000 projects that have become so fash­ion­able and are gen­er­at­ed by soft­ware. Not to dis­cred­it that val­ue in that but the mes­sage is very dif­fer­ent. I do con­sid­er the Pepe mes­sage very much in line with Artnet’s core tra­jec­to­ry: the art world online. 

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