Welcome to the ninth edition of the ART AS A CONSEQUENCE weekly briefing. This one is all about the return of Matt Furie and the mind-blowing 2’800 Ξ secondary sale (over $11M in less than 36 hours!), all 1-of-1 unique Peplicator NFT drop featuring the most iconic meme; Pepe The Frog. Grab a snack and let’s dive in into this legendary moment 🍿 WAGMIIII
Becoming Pepe 🐸 🌈
“Pepe the frog” was initially created in 2005 by the American artist Matt Furie for his webcomic series called "Boys Club”. Since its inception Pepe became one of the popular figures on the internet due to its laid-back, chill frog character often associated with the "feels good man" phrase.
Following Donald Trump’s presidential run in 2016, Pepe was appropriated by some users on the internet and associated with hate symbols (I will not be posting any of those as examples), which led Matt Furie to step to reclaim the character in a positive light. You can watch the trailer of his documentary here.
Pepe On The BlockChain 🐸 🧱⛓️
Although Pepe was an iconic figure in internet meme culture it also was embraced by the crypto natives, creators that of course expanded on the figure based on the zeitgeist and started creating Rare Pepes - which later turned into the Rare Pepe Trading Cards. These were also registered on the Blockchain in 2018 (with Homer Simpson Pepe selling for $40k just weeks later). Anyone could create and sell their Pepe art, which is actually based on Matt’s art, without Matt getting any royalties.
In 2021, Matt partnered with Rare Pepe and ChainSaw and released 103 collectible cards (have a look here). Then in September 2022, together with ChainSaw again he released Hedz, a collection of 1,000 NFTs, each hand-drawn, 1 of 1 including many characters - none of which a Pepe. This project summed over 4.6K Ξ ($18M in the secondary) and a floor of 1.8 Ξ ($7K). This time last year (March 2023), Matt collaborated with ChainSaw again on PEPE Editions Collection, a drop of the same five Pepe characters.
The Peplicator 🐸 🐸 🐸 🐸 🐸
The return of the Pepe as we know it. This Friday, 8th of March at 9pm CET the unique 1-of-1 Peplicator open edition NFT opened for public minting. It was an amazing experience. But what’s a great story without hiccups. First the website crashed 😅. The set up was that you could buy ZOGS NFTs to burn in order to get a 50% discount for the peplicator mint (at 0.05) or without ZOGS it was 0.1). I have to mention the gas fees - omg $200+ on GWEI for a $120 NFT mint. You gotta pay to play.
Once the minting for Peplicator (on peplicator.fun) was open you could Respin and the generative NFT would be created of the 12 traits available. It was a wild night. Of course, as the traffic was overwhelming you could not see what you were getting - the fear of missing out on great traits was strong. Imagine, you could get a hoodie x skull and would not even be able to claim it.
Nevertheless, on Saturday morning the stability was better and one could actually see also on the left side the other tokens. The red button below was for the respin. In total there were 306’248 respins for the total 22.K 1-of-1 unique “Peplicator” Pepe NFTs, about 13 spins before an NFT was selected.
The market is also wild - secondary is now almost jumping to 0.3 Ξ that’s 200% for the 0.1. Ξ mint and 500% for the 0.05 Ξ. Profits were collected.
The biggest sale so far is for this skull, minted at 0.05 Ξ and sold at 11.11 Ξ that’s a 22’120% profit - chapeau my fren 🎩
To recap: This one was for the books. People sold their $PEPE to buy the actual Pepe.
Lol (lots of love),
Dimitria
Visit artasaconsequence.net to discover more about my work in the art industry. You can contact me over email or find me on social media: Instagram | X | LinkedIn
