Pepe Stays Rare: Ten Years of Bitcoin Memes | Bitcoin 2026

to quote the song by Rish Gorilla in the medic supreme. We're going to talk about frogs. Frogs. Frogs. I'm Subterranean. Um, honored to be here at the convention. I'm glad they asked me. I really appreciate it. Um, a little bit about me. We're we're celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Rare Pepes. I do how-to articles on wallets and Pepes. Um, I wrote a book about Pepes. I do the lore every day on Twitter, Repeat Lore Lessons. And uh we got three excellent guests here. My first one is the artisan residence at Bitcoin Magazine. He's the curator of the museum in Nashville. He's got a fake rare called Tucker Pepe where he did early AI uh manipulation. And that's Tommy Marqueesi. Thank you. Yeah. Next, we got uh an early Bitcoin artist. He's the creator of the first tokenized drug reference, which is Den Pepe. He's a rare Pepe scientist and he's an overall OG. Sean Liry. Hello. >> And our final guest is an early Bitcoin artist as well, a music producer. He's a DJ. Rare Skrilla. Hello Skrilla. Where Skrilla is missing? >> Um, Ever Skrilla, man. DJ Pepe here, man. Squirrel always get all that shine. >> Oh yo, DJ Pepe, what do you know about Pepes? >> I was there from the early days. >> Day one. Day 13. Yo, Sean was day one. I don't know about you, Sean's real. >> DJ DJ Pepe was like the first artist, the real first artist to come to the the collection. So, it's a real honor to have him here, too. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> You guys are really lucky. >> We're talking to DJ Pepe. >> So, what is a rare Pepe, if you don't mind? >> Uh, rare Pepes are any tokens in a metal layer that um it could be an altcoin. Uh they're just rare Pepes. So, we ended up actually assigning art to them and selling memes, basically creating an economy with counterparty assets that weren't really being used for a whole lot. Um, when you think about ownership in a company, do you want a hacker to be able to take 20% voting rights of Apple? No. They would doesn't work. So, one day Mike came into the chat and said, "Uh, I'm going to make rare pet base provably rare by issuing a token for each image." And there's only 300 of these. And I was instantly hooked. Instantly FOMOed in. I knew I was scamming myself, but uh it turned out Nakamoto. >> Nakamoto car. There it is. >> Most famous. >> That's the rare Pepe. Yes. >> That's the rarest. So, >> so what do you think makes rare pepes still relevant? They've been here for 10 years, started 2 years after Counterparty. They're still selling. Someone paid $50,000 for one yesterday. I still can't believe it. Uh we were just kind of having fun in a chat room. The bare market were just I made Dank Pepe. I made 420 of them, of course, and I sold 410 of them the next day for a dollar each. And uh I think the all-time high is 35,000 on one. I think Skrilla's friend bought. So I apologize to I didn't sell it to him, but um yeah, it's it's crazy. I still can't believe that's really that sounds rare. Super rare. Rare Gorilla, he's not here, but he said Pepe is something you do. Rare Pepe is something you live. TJ Pepe, what does that mean? That's just uh you know a a code to live by. You know what I'm saying? With rare Pepees. Rare Pepe is something you live and Pepe is something you can do. Anybody can make a Pepe, but rare Pepe is like a lifestyle. Thank you Pepe. >> Tommy stole your girl. Leave the girls alone. Tommy, you have the the Bitcoin Museum in Nashville. How do you think that does Pepe fit in with Bitcoin art? Do you think >> Oh, yeah. I mean, you can't Is there overlap? >> Yeah, you can't have Bitcoin art without Pepe probably at this point. And Bitcoin art, I think, so I my background a little bit. I've worked uh at Bitcoin magazine and the conference almost 9 years now. Uh I curated the art gallery back in the day. Now I help with the art gallery and and it's uh it's it's BMAG now, the Bitcoin Museum and Art Gallery. And we have a a space in in in Nashville. And in the space in Nashville, we have over 300 artworks, I think, in total. Well, not 300 artworks, but 300, let's say, Bitcoin collectibles. And I would say a quarter of them are probably Pepe related. And I think that's just because it's one of the earliest imageries to be on Bitcoin or be uh referenced in uh in Bitcoin context. And uh it's hard from that provenance to separate it from Bitcoin art. And Bitcoin art is different for for every artist. We got a bunch of Bitcoin artists in the in the crowd here, all with completely different styles. Uh Scorilla completely different style, totally unique. Um, obviously the making uh rare Pepees like in Shan Lir style is is is a is an art form that eludes many people. Um, but as far as Bitcoin art goes, you can't separate Pepe from it. >> You said you're kind of the Pepe expert. You're the go-to guy at Bitcoin Magazine. >> Well, I have a little backstory. So, back when I started as a graphic designer at Bitcoin magazine in 2017 and Rare Pepes was obviously full full going uh at that point. I was trying to put Pepes in our graphics for uh for you know the website when we had an article that went out. I would try to put a Pepe in it. And I'm not going to name names, but some higherups at the company would tell me like we don't we can't do Pepes. It's, you know, it's like a hate symbol or or at that point the vibe was was more like that. And I wish at the time that was my cue to do the rabbit hole and get into rare Pepes, but I kind of took it as a young uh graphic designer like, okay, no Pepes, we'll we'll we won't do Pepes. And then uh as the years went on and I learned more about what the rare Pepes actually are and what that what Counterparty actually is, cuz at that point I didn't really understand Counterparty either. uh it just you know slowly we integrated the Pepes and they that you know nobody panicked and everything was okay and uh yeah so now in the company everyone kind of it they they printed my name tag and it just says Tommy Pepe because yeah that's basically how they they also don't know how to say my last name so that's easier that way. So, I put my book at the museum. Next year, we're all going to Nashville. We're going to take a tour. We're going to see all the Pepe stuff. And uh yeah, Pepe forever. Sean, you had an early introduction to R Pepes. You said you had a funny kind of crypto celebrity that brought you in. Is that kind of what happened? And >> oh, and you can't really mention Rip Pepe's without talking about Telegram chat. Is anyone on Telegram by chance? I mean, that's where it's all happening. That's where it all took place. And there was a guy named Clay who was a Bitcoin OG and he had a sticker kit called Best of Clay and it had all the best Pepe memes like trading memes. So you know when you lost your position you you know Pepe's hanging himself and or the the green candles are going up or red going down and so that kind of permeated the the online culture. So it made sense. Um, but the best story I had uh for the rare to make Pepe's rare, there's a video of this young about 14-year-old boy and he's like, I've got to make the most rarest Pepe today. I've drawn it. I haven't looked at it yet, and now I must eat it. And he sits there and he eats the piece of paper. He's like, "That is the most rarest Pepe." So like, >> it's never been seen before. It's gone. >> He made it, but he doesn't even know what it knows what it looks like. >> So it kind of clicked for me then, you know? That's a funny type of >> Welcome to Predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. >> Get a 100% cash back up to $100 on your first predict bet if it loses. Predict, where everything is a market. And DJ Pepe, he did something unusual. If you hold his card and you go to Joe Looney's wallet, you can flip it over and there's bonus content. And that content was mixes of music by DJ Pepe. Is that correct? Yeah. I had a music I had a music page. If you had the token, you flip the card over and there's a bonus content and it took you to a private link of like kind of like cutting room floor songs and um DJ mixes that only the token holders could listen to. DJ Pepe is like the king of Soundcloud. Is that is that what I understand? DJ Pepe stole your SoundCloud. >> Exactly. It's too rare. People can't hear it. So Sean, uh, Bitcoin Uncensored had a big part in Rare Pepes. Nakamoto led to Beyash, which led to the breakup of one of the greatest podcasts. Yeah. Um, so I met Chris and Josh in person late 2014. And I I I threw a Bitcoin pizza party for the 5-year, and they came up from South Florida. and um their interaction together. I said, "You guys need to make a podcast." Like they would finish each other's sentences. They they argued like an old married couple and the podcast took off and Pepe kind of came around that same time and they were into it and they promoted it. And John Seth being a collector happened to buy a few of these Nakamoto cards. And one of the tenants of Bitcoin Uncensored was they would never take any type of sponsorship. they would never get paid for any of their content. But the problem was when Mike air dropped Pepe Cash to the holders of that card. Now Josh has now received some type of numeration and that broke that was one of the things that kind of broke them apart and so uh that one's been memorial memorialized on Pepe as well. So it probably rare Rare Pepe's destroyed the best Bitcoin podcast of that time. >> It's true. Rare Pepe destroys a lot of things. I mean, but it brings people together as well. It made all my Pepe friends here. It made relationships. DJ Pepe's like handler met somebody in Telegram, right? Like Sean had something to do with that as well. I don't know if DJ Pepe ever told that story. Yeah. You know, uh DJ Pepe really stole your girl. That's a real thing. >> Okay. That's all you can say. I mean, it's just a fact. Um, in 2021, rare Pepes and other digital art went to Sabe's auctions. One, a one of one Pepe Pepin was sold for $3.65 million at that time. And even today, people are still paying that amount of money, right? It's for a JPEG on Bitcoin, but it has more value than that. It has more significance than that. >> Yeah. You're you're buying a digital token that is a as a receipt of an art. So, it's a way to support digital artists. And we saw that right off the bat. Um, how else can they get, you know, fan base to to support them? Yeah, you could send someone to Venmo, but now you actually hold a digital signature signed by that artist. And it kind of, you know, took off from there. And it really Counterparty has always been big on physical digital. We a lot of the artists end up making a digital card and turning it into physical or vice versa. Tommy sees them kind of You do a lot of bidding as well. You buy a lot of Bitcoin art. Yeah. Well, that's basically the origin of the museum was that uh I I so I'm an artist, but I also love to collect art because I just I just do when I see artwork from other artists that I uh you know, respect and I love the art and I see that I'm able to buy it, it's like hard for me not to. So, this has led to me collecting way too much Bitcoin art and Pepes. And uh David Bailey, the CEO of the company, is basically just like me, but probably like 3x uh is crazy. So together, that's the main bulk of the of the museum collection in Nashville. And uh it is it is a lot of Pepes. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's valuable to see it hanging against it is fine art, right? It's frogs, but we've got fine artists making it. back in Naples over here in Diji. Beautiful artwork that just happens to have a frog involved. Right. >> Well, and yeah, I think the fun thing about Pepe is >> well there's rare Pepes which obviously you few see and many Yeah. And then the, you know, Pepe kind of evolves from artist to artist. Like you've got Cassenya Buridenova, who she's actually the official artist and residence at Bitcoin Magazine right now. Uh, she she took my title. I think my my title's artist and residence at BTC, Inc. So, well, there's two artists. So, there's two artists in residence currently, but she almost exclusively paints Pepes these days. Well, she she paints other works, too, but her Bitcoin art and the what she inscribes on Bitcoin as ordinals uh after she she paints them are usually uh oil uh you know, Rembrandt quality Pepe master. And uh but the way that she renders the Pepe is definitely less uh true to the original cartoon than say like you know uh Pepinardo for instance who will will render a uh a beautiful uh Renaissance style painting and then slap the cartoonish Pepe on top of it uh to have that contrast. And I think, you know, both are equally amazing to me. And I think, you know, history will appreciate these words, >> right? So, so we've gone 10 years, but it's kind of morphed into something bigger. And I mean, people kind of get salty about art on Bitcoin. Uh, Skrilla really appreciates Bitcoin. He was one of the earliest Bitcoin artists to accept Bitcoin. He even says Bitcoin is scarce money and he kind of protects it. Skrilla, DJ Pepe, is that kind of a true statement as far as your belief about Bitcoin and Bitcoin art? I can't speak for Rare Skrilla, but for DJ Pepe, um, you know, I live in the meme pool. A >> the meme pool. >> A DJ in the meme pool. >> That's a man pool. >> He turns up in the meme pool. He stays in the mean pool. It never gets confirmed. That's why it's so rare. >> Yeah, we just did getting confirmed. If you go to DJ Pepe. WTF, in fact, you can uh you can see all the confirmations on there. Thank you, DJ Pepe. >> DJ Pepe has been rejected from Rare Pepes and he in fact had to start fake Rare Pepes. >> Yeah. >> The guy sitting on stage, Sean Larry, happened to make that band possible. We we don't allow fake rares in uh the chat. >> Shout out to fake rar to my brother fake DJ Pepe. >> That was that was a fake band though, right? You were able to come back to Rare Pepes. >> Yeah, the the band the band was temporary. Uh thankful to the Rare Pepe Scientist for you know kind of helping extend fake rares. So, speaking of the the fake scientists, I mean, in 2018, sorry, the scientists, they were done. They were doing too much work. They couldn't do it anymore. >> And they posted a farewell letter which was meant to be read by Joe Looney. >> All right. Here you can This is We want >> This is something that Joe Looney wrote on behalf of the repet scientists. >> Okay. Well, this is uh the most people I've ever read in front of. So, you've got >> Rare Pepe Foundation official letter head. That's that's what it says up there. A letter from the scientists. Since rare Pepes were first discovered on the blockch the Bitcoin blockchain, two words, blockchain, mind you, block space. >> 2016 version chain. That's the correct That's the correct version. The Bitcoin blockchain. In September 2016, we have worked tirelessly to both verify to verify both raress and dankness for the rare Pepe trading community. Over the last 18 months, we have certified nearly 1,800 Pepes as rare and have listed each one and its likeness in the the rare Pepe directory. Today, we are hanging up our lab codes and closing the book on future submissions to the rare Pepe directory. It's been a fantastic journey honing our craft and discovering and cataloging new rare Pepes. We have no doubt that rare Pepe trading will continue to thrive with every existing Pepe becoming more rare as time moves forward. The Rare Pepe directory and Rare Pepe wallet will continue to be maintained as an homage to this brief moment in time in internet history. Your friends, the Rare Pepe scientists. Thank you, Tommy. Shout out Joe Looney >> who does it for the love of the game. The Ripley wallet has made zero dollars yet he maintains it to this day. >> Straight for love. It's one of the only one of the only ways you can look at your rare Pepes. >> That's right. >> Um on a Bitcoin wallet and it's a and it's a Bitcoin wallet. >> So in total they did 1,774 rare Pepe cards. Sean, >> was that a bittersweet moment? A retiring ceremony of scientists in real life in Telegram? We were just really drained. I think um Scrilla could talk to it with fakes. I mean, they've been up for 5 years now and still taking submissions. It It's um It's a fun job, but when you're not getting paid to do it, cuz we did it for free. Um yeah, 18 months was perfect. It's an F. Yeah, >> there were artists from, according to my research, there's over 300 artists worldwide that made a rare Pepe. A lot of them are still unknown to this day. Some of them still hold their value or they hold their collection, right? And it's called dead wallets, waking up wallets, um, Diamond Hands, Diamond Hands never let go of their Pepes, DJ Pepe, there's even burned Pepes and destroyed Pepes. There's so much that we could talk about, right? this. >> Yeah. H have, you know, trading the Pepees is all about kind of like doing hood rad with your friends on the blockchain and you're using Bitcoin. You create many Bitcoin users cuz you have to use Bitcoin to trade rare Pepees. So mad people learn about Rare Pepes or learn about Bitcoin through Rare Pepees. So >> mad people. >> Yeah, >> mad lots of people. At one point there was like 40 40 or 50% of the meme pool is filled with Bitcoin interactions with Rare Pepes in 2017 or 18 or something. >> Meme.WTF is an actual site, right? You can see your Pepe is confirmed there. >> Every time the block hits it says Pepe Sean, you kind of delegate your Pepes. You people come to you, they want your Pepes, but you don't give away your Pepes. Well, I like to trade. >> I think trading is the best way to go. You know, >> as an artist, that's your exchange. That's your value, right? You can It gives you trade leverage. Someone wants something very rare, you can get something you want. >> There's a leaderboard. >> That's true. >> Yeah. So, you want to be up high. I think I'm number nine or 10 on the leaderboard. >> And I And I came I was there, but I also didn't have time or funds to really collect a lot of them because like the handled ones were expensive right from the beginning. Like I only have like two or three of his and they're all awesome. And >> Mr. Hansel said he's taking his Pepes to the grave. They're going to be in a sacophagus with all of his worldly treasures. He doesn't want anybody to have his rare Pepes. Well, he doesn't want anyone to have his uh his physical artworks either. He just he just does the prints and sells the prints. And I'm trying to get my hands on one of those originals. >> Mr. Hansel, what do you have for yourself? >> I do it too, so I don't blame you. Selling prints is nice. Is it hard to make your art and give your art away? Do you feel like >> No, I think it's like um I grew up on Reddit and making memes on advice animals and that's where it was a perfect segway to make Pepe memes. Um but of course on Reddit you're just going for karma points and you want to get to that front page. So I for me it was kind of making me art. Um but it got me creative again and got me feeling like a little kid. I mean when you're drawing and doing all those things again you're like oh I I still like doing this. So it it did that for a lot of people I think. >> And check out my new mixtape. Rare Pepes are not NFTTS dropping this summer. >> Rare Pepes started before the word NFT was a word. Correct. >> Yeah. Way before like uh you could say rare Pepes laid the idea for all of the NFTts to come up out of the uh ground. >> Yeah. I would say I would say only one Pepe is probably the first NFT. is the first one of one. >> Yeah. >> And series one too as well. >> So, we're almost out of time. I really appreciate my panelists here. Uh I really wish Skrilla was here, but I mean DJ Pepe is pretty put that dude in the car, man. >> I understand acting up. >> He's out chasing girls. >> No, Skrilla married. >> Oh. Oh, right. Right. I'm talking about DJ Pepe. He's chasing He's taking girls. I'll chase I'll chase the girls. You come take a picture with me in the art gallery though through Wednesday. You know what I'm saying? No. This girl is an upstanding. >> Don't bring your girl. Bring a girl. Don't bring a girl to the art gallery. >> If anybody wants to talk more about rare Pepes, I'll be hanging out over here. Uh the book is available. We've got stuff on auction. A lot of rare Pepe history back there. >> There's another great book back there for sale, too, that has a whole Pepe section. Mostly handles, but what was the name of that book? That was >> not uh Bitcoin on art. Bitcoin through art. Art. Yeah, the Bitcoin Art Magazine. No, that's it's a book. It's uh But anyway, Tommy's involved with the Bitcoin Art Magazine. You're not involved with Bitcoin Art Magazine. There's a Bitcoin art magazine. And there's going to be Pepe art in the Bitcoin. >> There is Pepe art in the Bitcoin art magazine. And that's what's important. >> Issue two will feature myself, Amy DG, K Mayfield. >> It's all good. >> Thank you guys. >> Appreciate everybody. Everybody appreciate it. Thanks for coming out. Love you guys. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.