Skip the ramble. Go straight to the pepes.
Before NFTs
NFTs are rightfully a controversial topic in Bitcoin. If we're being real, the space is a speculative circus of jpeg trading that mostly relies on a zero-day, arguably centralized protocol. Many current projects will trend to worthlessness over time.
However, in our view, the concept of NFTs is here to stay and will likely flourish to become an important building block of the next phase of the internet, (cringe alert) the metaverse. No one know what this pie-in-the-sky digital world will look like but whatever the form, digital asset ownership will be essential.
What we do know is where the concept started. Before the pixelated avatar frenzy, there was a grass roots project that was just as heavy on security as soul. The term "NFT" wasn't used in the days of its creation. These blockchain tethered jpegs and gifs were simply called rare pepes.
What makes rare pepes special? For one, they're secured by the strongest network the world has ever known. Rare pepe metadata is recorded in the OP_RETURN field of a Bitcoin transactions.
What's more, rare pepes embody the strongest meme of the digital age, Pepe the Frog. Pepe circulated MySpace profiles before being co-opted by celebrities, the Alt-Right, and the Free Hong Kong movement. Pepe is not good or bad. Pepe is the perfect meme because it can symbolize anything to anybody.
The Rare Pepe project has been subject to almost as much controversy as its protagonist. It's withstood assaults from all imaginable sides: the PC police, block space purists, and even the creator of Pepe the Frog himself. It's a rare NFT breed (pun intended) that actually benefits from the uncensorable nature of blockchains as it would have almost certainly been cancelled otherwise.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, select rare pepes achieve the greatest heights of culture, beauty, and comedy.
Rare peps are punk rock, digital poetry, and everything between.
Rare Pepes on Scarce City
We've been a proud supporter of rare pepes since Joe Looney auctioned his Physical RAREPEPE & GOXPEPE in April 2021 and have since auctioned two pepe collections, most recently in late-July.
We plan to continue to auction rare pepes for select occasions but sometimes pepes are best traded at a fixed price. The seller may only be willing to sell at a specific price and the buyer may want to buy immediately.
The same can be said for the many Fine Bitcoin Goods that we plan to add to our fixed price marketplace, such as original art, prints, clothing, etc. Pepes are the ideal seed given their standardized data and ease of transfer.
The Scarce City Way
The pristine collateral of Bitcoin combined with the cheap, instant, anonymous transactions of Lightning have enabled our auctions to keep bidders accountable with minimal friction.
We plan to use these same properties to keep sellers accountable in our marketplace. Instead of exposing themselves to the cost and risk of giving up custody of their pepes, they simply pay a small deposit that is refunded once their pepe is sold or they cancel their listing. If they fail to transfer their sold pepe, they lose their deposit and a portion of it is sent to the would-be buyer to compensate them for the failed transaction trouble.
It's trust and friction minimized value transfer made possible by the Bitcoin stack.
V1.0
We have a roadmap full of improvements to make it easy to browse and buy pepes as well as list them. But we got dank and rare pepes for sale now for those feeling froggy 🐸
Check out the Rare Pepe Marketplace here.