{"id":120587,"date":"2018-01-23T11:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T16:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=120587"},"modified":"2018-01-26T13:24:13","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T18:24:13","slug":"much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blockchain technology could reshape the digital-art market for years to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>

Digital art collection by artists from dada.nyc<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first <\/span>Rare Digital Art Festival,<\/span><\/a> aka Rare AF, aka Rare as Fuck, was held on a cold January Saturday in the offices of Rise New York. The organizers, Kevin Trinh and Tommy Nicholas of the <\/span>Rare Art Registry Exchange<\/span><\/a>, had announced the event only a few weeks earlier, but by midmorning, the airy coworking space was swarming with crypto boosters and speculators, gamers, meme aficionados, artists, and collectors. This unlikely crowd (mostly young men, though I heard one audience member marvel at \u201call the women\u201d present) had gathered for panel discussions, demos, an initial-coin-offering announcement, free sandwiches, and a live digital-art auction. Like many tech events, the aim of the conference was ambitious bordering on grandiose: the attendees of Rare AF believed they were witnessing history. They were certain that blockchain technology would reshape the future of digital art for years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the panels shared an underlying premise: The rise of digital media has made every kind of art widely accessible, but it has also created many problems. Because people can copy and share files freely and infinitely, artists don\u2019t receive compensation for their work. Worse, an increasingly powerful cadre of middlemen services (Amazon, Spotify, etc.) have been fracturing the media landscape while reaping almost all of the profits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter the blockchain, a decentralized and immutable ledger of digital transactions with the power to reintroduce scarcity and property rights to the digital-media economy. Many conference participants held strong beliefs about the superiority of a particular blockchain (Bitcoin vs. Ethereum), but for artists and collectors, the processes and results of these competing cryptocurrencies are fairly similar. An artist creates a limited-edition crypto collectible\u2014the digital equivalent of a signed print\u2014and exchanges it with a buyer for some cryptocurrency. The new buyer truly owns this digital object; they can keep it in their crypto wallet, show it off in a virtual gallery, or project it from a digital picture frame hung on their wall\u2014a service offered by panelist Vladimir Vukicevic\u2019s company\u00a0<\/span>Meural<\/span><\/a>. Just as you can share reproductions of the Mona Lisa<\/em>, someone could still copy and paste the image, but the provenance and price history of the original are accessible to all. The original of these works is identifiable and cannot be replicated, which is why they are called \u201cprovably rare.\u201d Kieran Farr, a panelist representing a virtual-reality platform called <\/span>Decentraland<\/span><\/i><\/a>, summed things up<\/span> to a round of applause: \u201cFinally, authenticity has value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The most basic application of this technology comes in the form of digital collectibles and in-game purchases. These are items that artists or developers have either created whole cloth or licensed from preexisting brands\u2014the digital equivalent of <\/span>Star Wars<\/span><\/i> figurines, baseball cards, or Beanie Babies. Crypto artists and collectors assess the value of their products in four ways: intrinsic (Do you personally like it?), extrinsic (Does it make you look cool?), utility (Can you do stuff with it?), and store of value (Will it maintain its worth?). The most successful crypto collectibles will not merely sit on your desktop\u2014they will be unbearably cute, the envy of your friends, able to interact with other digital objects in a digital world, and maintain or go up in value.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

CryptoKitties<\/p><\/div>\n

So far, collectors have mostly ignored these questions, focusing on the novelty of the underlying technology. In the past year, whole ecosystems of collectibles have sprung up. The most famous of these is <\/span>CryptoKitties<\/span><\/a>, a game where collectors breed and trade digital cats. The game is so inexplicably popular that, recently, rare CryptoKitties have sold for as much as\u00a0253 Ether, which at the time of sale on December 6 was equivalent to just over $110,000\u00a0(and, as I write this, is now worth about $251,000). During the CryptoKitties Q&A, an audience member asked Dan Viau, the founder of an app devoted to selling hats and costumes for CryptoKitties called Kitty Hats, whether the company was concerned that CryptoKitties were being used to launder money.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were a money launderer,\u201d he replied, \u201cI think it would be malpractice <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> to use CryptoKitties.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the crypto collectible market is frothier than ever, traditional fine-art collectors have been slower than the Reddit crowd to adopt blockchain. During a talk called \u201cHow the Blockchain Changes the Game for Artists,\u201d panelists agreed that the technology offered great value to artists but were concerned about the structural issues posed by introducing it to the museum world. Michael Xufu Huang\u2014a New Museum trustee and cofounder of the Beijing museum M Woods\u2014expressed reservations. \u201cI\u2019m a little skeptical,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

The history of digital-art collection has been one of beneficence; institutional collectors typically choose to pay artists because curators deem their work important and want to preserve and archive it, but most digital art has no resale value because it cannot be rigorously authenticated. The advent of blockchain is poised to change that. <\/span><\/p>\n

But major art collectors have been hesitant: they value discretion and exclusivity. Institutions, who would have the power to shift the art world toward this development, have been risk averse. Though MoMA, the Whitney, and the New Museum (and their digital-art affiliate, Rhizome) have amassed or commissioned significant holdings of digital art, none of them currently own any work disseminated or purchased through a blockchain. (The Whitney, however, is in the process of commissioning a blockchain work by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy to be launched in spring 2018.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite these headwinds, individual artists are beginning to show interest in the technology. Sotheby\u2019s graduate student Jess Houlgrave presented a roundup of artists\u00a0who had used blockchain in their recent work: Simon Denny created a crypto-themed version of Risk called <\/span>Blockchain Future States<\/span><\/a><\/em>\u00a0for<\/span> Petzel Gallery<\/span><\/a>; <\/span>Ed Fornieles<\/span><\/a> developed a series of Tamagotchi-like creatures called <\/span>Finiliars<\/span><\/a>, whose health and happiness are algorithmically tied to the fluctuations of various market instruments and cryptocurrencies; and <\/span>Sarah Meyohas<\/span><\/a> minted her own parodic cryptocurrency back in 2015 called <\/span>Bitchcoin<\/span><\/a>. In their own ways, each of these artists is exploring the technological, economic, and cultural properties of the blockchain. The most compelling work to come out of the panel, though, wasn\u2019t somebody Houlgrave mentioned but rather a fellow panelist deeply embedded in meme culture: DJ Pepe. On stage, he appeared as a six-foot cardboard cutout of a frog man hunched over an invisible set of turntables. Attendees and fellow panelists addressed their questions to the cardboard DJ Pepe, while his creator and \u201cmanager,\u201d DJ Scrilla, answered over the PA system from the back of the room. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

DJ Pepe is a crypto collectible rare Pepe meme certified by the <\/span>Rare Pepe Foundation<\/span><\/a>. Though Pepe began life as a web comic by artist Matt Furie,\u00a0users of the online message board 4chan\u00a0have long traded images of the cartoon frog, producing increasingly obscure and bizarre variations of the character, which users ironically refer to as \u201crare.\u201d (In 2016, Pepe rose to prominence as a hate symbol of the alt-right, which Furie and the Rare Pepe Foundation disavow.) Despite, or perhaps because of Pepe\u2019s mutability\u2014the frog is practically a metonym for memes\u2014collectors have begun to buy and sell limited-edition cryptographic trading cards of Pepe submitted by artists and issued by the Rare Pepe Foundation, which buyers subsequently store in <\/span>Rare Pepe Wallets<\/span><\/a>. The content of these Pepes varies. Many are satires of the crypto scene itself, like a froggy version of the twins from T<\/em><\/span>he Shining<\/span><\/i> called Winkelpepe, but others feature Pepe smoking fat joints, <\/span>dabbing<\/span><\/a>, or eating animated flying pizzas. Some are released in editions of thousands; others are limited to single copies. With the help of a Bitcoin-based platform called Counterparty, collectors conduct their sales with their own currency, PepeCash, traded on exchanges in the U.S. and Japan for about $0.08\u00a0to\u00a01 Pepe buck (at least at the time of publication).<\/span><\/p>\n

What set DJ Pepe apart from these other memes was the moment DJ Scrilla began releasing mixes supposedly authored by DJ Pepe himself. Owners of the DJ Pepe card are granted special DJ Pepe cryptographic tokens, which allow them to access limited-edition content, like DJ Pepe\u2019s \u201cexclusive jams.\u201d In essence, DJ Pepe is the first blockchain performance artist, a character who is not merely commenting on the technology from the outside but is literally a part of it: \u201cI\u2019m on block 434,102, on the Bitcoin blockchain,\u201d he reminded the audience. <\/span><\/p>\n

During the Q&A, somebody from the audience asked him, \u201cHow does blockchain prevent what\u2019s happened across the digital media space, especially in music, of somebody being able to download it, and\u2014\u201d DJ Scrilla used a microphone to interrupt. He felt he\u2019d already explained this issue, and was getting annoyed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou just own the token\u2014you\u2019re getting blessed by Kek\u2014I could take that music away, but you still own me, and you still love me!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to move on now,\u201d the moderator announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the uninitiated, this may all sound like a convoluted\u00a0Internet rabbit hole, but DJ Pepe and the rare Pepe collectors may in fact be auguring a new digital-media economy, an organic community of artists, collectors, and enthusiasts who took a kind of social currency and turned it into both a form of folk art and a digital asset.<\/span> For them, crypto collectible ownership becomes a point of pride and, potentially, a kind of investment. What\u2019s more, DJ Pepe\u2019s model is open to non-meme artists, who are free to create their own cryptographic collectibles and to use them as tokens to offer buyers value in the real world, like early access to new content, extended cuts of time-based work, or invitations to secret shows.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a long day of disrupting, the attendees of the Rare Digital Art Festival were growing impatient for the art auction. This would be the first ever live auction of rare digital art, with rare Pepe memes certified by the Rare Pepe Foundation, represented in person by Joe Looney, creator of the Rare Pepe Wallet. Coffee had been switched out for cans of IPA, and the mood of the room grew restive as the auctioneers, two rail-thin crypto developers named Louis Parker and Jay Rosenstein, came to the podium and introduced themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want these rare Pepes?\u201d Parker asked the cheering crowd. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in the Pepe-verse a long time,\u201d he added, by way of bona fides.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the giant screen behind them appeared the first lot, a diptych of Salvador Dal\u00ed\u2013inspired Pepes. The bidding, held in PepeCash, began at 5,000, and soon the first lot was sold for a cool 12,000 PepeCash. The next lot was five \u201ccertified DJ Pepes.\u201d Matt Hall, creator of <\/span>CryptoPunks<\/span><\/a>, stage-whispered, \u201cThat is an amazing deal, I think!\u201d But it was Joe Looney who took home the prize, including the six-foot cutout still looming on stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll sell you that,\u201d Looney pointed to the cutout, \u201cfor $5,000.\u201d There were no buyers, but some audience members did climb onstage to take selfies with it.\u00a0Five hundred\u00a0Kekistan\u00a0passports went for 20,000 PepeCash, while\u00a0twenty animated Japanese-watercolor Pepes by the celebrated artist DaVinci9 sold for 26,000. Bidders furiously typed on their laptops to determine whether the lots were inflated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s actually a good deal,\u201d one of them said. \u201cThat last tea Pepe sold for 15,000,\u201d and that had been only a single Pepe, not a set of twenty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a little short on time, so we\u2019re going to skip to some of the danker lots,\u201d Parker told the audience. When a rare frog Satoshi appeared on the screen behind him\u2014one of only three hundred\u00a0ever made\u2014the giddy energy in the room seemed to change. Satoshi Nakamoto is the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. He may actually be a collective of people and\u00a0is estimated to hold nearly\u00a0a million\u00a0in his own currency. When the price of Bitcoin hit\u00a0$19,000, Nakamoto was temporarily <\/span>the forty-fourth richest person in the world<\/span><\/a>. Bidders fidgeted with excitement; DJ Scrilla repeatedly crossed and uncrossed his legs, revealing a pair of black socks decorated with golden Bitcoins. The bidding was fierce, with a handful of enthusiasts driving up the price until the last offer came in at\u00a060,000 PepeCash. I asked one of the losers, an older man with a shaved head and rumpled shirt, why he was willing to spend so much on Pepes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome months ago, my son said, \u2018Dad, buy this thing, Pepe, it\u2019s rare.\u2019 I don\u2019t know what the fuck.\u201d He shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s like rounding out my crypto portfolio.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And then we came to the final lot. Emanating from the grid of screens on stage was a single edition Homer Simpson Pepe\u2014the only one in existence. His skin was green instead of yellow, and his eyes bugged out like the doppelg\u00e4nger Homer finds on a detergent box during a <\/span>Simpsons<\/span><\/i> episode set in Japan. He smiled beatifically against a backdrop of blue sky and fluffy clouds. Not only was Homer rarer than Satoshi, but he was something even \u201cnocoinerz\u201d could understand. The bidding began at\u00a020,000 PepeCash\u00a0and quickly surpassed 100,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fucking historic event,\u201d an audience member exclaimed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGo alpha!\u201d said another.<\/span><\/p>\n

DJ Scrilla used his phone to blare a reggae-style air horn: Bwong bwong bwonggggggg<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The price cleared\u00a0350,000 PepeCash, with only two bidders remaining.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCan I get 360?\u201d Parker asked. \u201cAlright, 350,000, going once, going twice \u2026 \u201d he paused. \u201cSold for\u00a0350,000 PepeCash.\u201d Someone next to me held up his phone with a calculator: at a little over 0.11 PepeCash to the dollar, the Homer Pepe had sold for $39,200, making it the most expensive rare Pepe ever. The room erupted in cheers of excitement and disbelief. These Pepes, many of them drawn in\u00a0Microsoft Paint, had gone from being infinitely reproducible kitsch\u2014\u201crare\u201d only in an ironic sense\u2014to being actual rare art commodities, at least in the eyes of the people who had bought them.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the winners came up to the podium to collect their purchases, it became clear that two different people believed they had been the one to place the final bid on the Homer Pepe. It was an awkward situation, and Parker and Rosenstein didn\u2019t know how to proceed\u2014this was their first auction. Both bidders looked like they were having second thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll flip a coin,\u201d someone suggested. \u201cWho has a coin?\u201d They searched their pockets, but nobody had any change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a better way,\u201d a young woman said. \u201cWe\u2019ll use a hash and guess if it\u2019s odd or even.\u201d The bidders didn\u2019t like this method, so somebody went into the crowd and retrieved a quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The young woman who\u2019d suggested the hash acted as referee and flipped the coin. One of the bidders, Peter Kell, who wore a hat with the words Don\u2019t Be A Little Bitch<\/em> on the back, called heads and was determined the winner. A strange look passed over his face, as if he were envisioning all the things he could have bought with that money\u2014a new car, a two-month trek climbing Mount Everest, a down payment on a house\u2014but then he cheered and clapped for his victory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why had he been willing to spend so much on this Pepe? Was he an early adopter, swimming in PepeCash, a devoted memer, a crypto developer with the inside scoop? Actually, Peter told me, he works in marketing and had flown in from Florida just for the event. His friends had gotten him curious about Pepes, which he felt were a good investment opportunity. \u201cI was like, Why are all these rich people into PepeCash?\u201d He turned to Parker and Rosenstein and asked if the auctioneers would accept Bitcoin, as he hadn\u2019t gotten around to buying any PepeCash yet. \u201cThis is actually my first Pepe,\u201d he explained. \u201cI don\u2019t even have a Pepe Wallet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Daniel Penny<\/a> writes\u00a0about art and culture at <\/em>The New Yorker, Boston Review, and elsewhere. He teaches writing and visual culture at Parsons School of Design.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blockchain technology could reshape the digital-art market for years to come.   The first Rare Digital Art Festival, aka Rare AF, aka Rare as Fuck, was held on a cold January Saturday in the offices of Rise New York. The organizers, Kevin Trinh and Tommy Nicholas of the Rare Art Registry Exchange, had announced the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1369,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[32651,32643,32640,32646,32641,32648,32647,32642,32649,32639,32644,20878,32645,32650],"class_list":["post-120587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-cryptokitties","tag-cryptopunks","tag-dj-pepe","tag-ed-fornieles","tag-homer-simpson-pepe","tag-kieran-farr","tag-michael-xufu-huang","tag-pepecash","tag-rare-digital-art-festival","tag-rare-pepe","tag-rare-pepe-foundation","tag-sarah-meyohas","tag-simon-denny","tag-vladimir-vukicevic"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Blockchain technology is reshaping the digital-art market.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction by Daniel Penny\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 23, 2018 \u2013 Blockchain technology could reshape the digital-art market for years to come.   The first Rare Digital Art Festival, aka Rare AF, aka Rare as Fuck,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-23T16:00:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-26T18:24:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"917\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daniel Penny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Penny\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"13 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Penny\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a4f7f6ffc008302a46021c6438548cf7\"},\"headline\":\"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-23T16:00:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-26T18:24:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\"},\"wordCount\":2712,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"CryptoKitties\",\"CryptoPunks\",\"DJ Pepe\",\"Ed Fornieles\",\"Homer Simpson pepe\",\"Kieran Farr\",\"Michael Xufu Huang\",\"Pepecash\",\"Rare Digital Art Festival\",\"Rare Pepe\",\"Rare Pepe Foundation\",\"Sarah Meyohas\",\"Simon Denny\",\"Vladimir Vukicevic\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\",\"name\":\"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-23T16:00:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-26T18:24:13+00:00\",\"description\":\"Blockchain technology is reshaping the digital-art market.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a4f7f6ffc008302a46021c6438548cf7\",\"name\":\"Daniel Penny\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4a7412c23a86d8c45ec37b6d44ec120aba91a5c07b3211ab5cca3c45930fae55?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4a7412c23a86d8c45ec37b6d44ec120aba91a5c07b3211ab5cca3c45930fae55?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Daniel Penny\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpenny\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction","description":"Blockchain technology is reshaping the digital-art market.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction by Daniel Penny","og_description":"January 23, 2018 \u2013 Blockchain technology could reshape the digital-art market for years to come.   The first Rare Digital Art Festival, aka Rare AF, aka Rare as Fuck,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2018-01-23T16:00:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-01-26T18:24:13+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2450,"height":917,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Daniel Penny","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Daniel Penny","Est. reading time":"13 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/"},"author":{"name":"Daniel Penny","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a4f7f6ffc008302a46021c6438548cf7"},"headline":"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction","datePublished":"2018-01-23T16:00:55+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-26T18:24:13+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/"},"wordCount":2712,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg","keywords":["CryptoKitties","CryptoPunks","DJ Pepe","Ed Fornieles","Homer Simpson pepe","Kieran Farr","Michael Xufu Huang","Pepecash","Rare Digital Art Festival","Rare Pepe","Rare Pepe Foundation","Sarah Meyohas","Simon Denny","Vladimir Vukicevic"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/","name":"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg","datePublished":"2018-01-23T16:00:55+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-26T18:24:13+00:00","description":"Blockchain technology is reshaping the digital-art market.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/44e.00creeps_weirdoscollection.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/much-pepe-scenes-first-rare-digital-art-auction\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a4f7f6ffc008302a46021c6438548cf7","name":"Daniel Penny","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4a7412c23a86d8c45ec37b6d44ec120aba91a5c07b3211ab5cca3c45930fae55?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4a7412c23a86d8c45ec37b6d44ec120aba91a5c07b3211ab5cca3c45930fae55?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Daniel Penny"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpenny\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120587"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120866,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120587\/revisions\/120866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}