Series 1
Further reading about the references made in Series 1, Cards 1-50 as well as links & original images (if available).
Work in progress - if you would like to contribute your card-specific story, please follow the steps in How to Contribute to the Book of Kek or send us an email titled "BoK Edit Request" to [email protected].
Series 1, Card 1 - RAREPEPE
Series 1, Card 1 - RAREPEPE is the card that started it all. The anonymous artist that goes only by "Mike" posted a link to this asset on the Counterparty platform on September 9, 2016 with little explanation. He was also the first and only "Rare Pepe Scientist" for cards 1 - 1,000. The image is a parody of Dorian Nakamoto who was falsely identified as the real Satoshi Nakamoto in a high-profile article in the US magazine "Newsweek" on March 6, 2014.
Series 1, Card 2 - GOXPEPE
Series 1, Card 2 - GOXPEPE was created by "Mike" the same person who started the whole Rare Pepe project when he released the above RAREPEPE card. He also created SHITCOINCARD, TRUMPRARE, PEPECASH, and UFOPEPE. Mike was also the first Rare Pepe Scientist. He took on the responsibility of examining each card submission and approving the very best for inclusion in the Rare Pepe Directory. The person pictured on the card is Mark Karpelès who was the former CEO of the Bitcoin exchange Mt. GOX. Karpelès was arrested in Japan in 2015 for allegations of fraud that led to the collapes of Mt. Gox.
Series 1, Card 3 - SHITCOINCARD
Series 1, Card 3 - SHITCOINCARD was created by the man that started the Rare Pepe project - Mike. Not much is known about Mike except that he created a total of 6 cards for the Rare Pepe project and was the first Rare Pepe Scientist. To Bitcoin maximalists, every other project is considered a "shitcoin." In this card, Mike takes a jab at people who bought or traded them and called out Litecoin, Maza, and NuBits specifically.
Series 1, Card 4 - PEPENATION
Series 1, Card 4 - PEPENATION was created by Theo Goodman. You can read more about Theo in the GURUPEPE write-up below. Pictured in the card is Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof of the project BitNation. The firm partnered with Spacechain in 2015 to create a peer-to-peer research service to study the cosmos. Here is an interview with Susanne that discusses the project in detail.
Series 1, Card 5 - DANKPEPE
Series 1, Card 5 - DANKPEPE was created by Rare Pepe OG and Retired Rare Pepe Scientist Shawn Leary. He created/commissioned a total of 15 cards for the Rare Pepe project. DANKPEPE is in all likelihood the first weed related tokenized digital art piece.
You can listen to Shawn discuss DANKPEPE and all his other cards in the interview below.
Series 1, Card 6 - TRUMPRARE
Series 1, Card 6 - TRUMPRARE was created by a man known only as Mike. Not only did Mike create this card, but he started the whole Rare Pepe project when he released the iconic RAREPEPE card and became the first Rare Pepe Scientist. The card is a parody of the 45th President of the United States of America - Donald J. Trump. The text on the card make reference to Mr. Trumps campaign promise to build a wall at the United States and Mexico border, his love of winning, making business deals, and his daughter Ivanka.
Series 1, Card 7 - PEPEPARTY
Series 1, Card 7 - PEPEPARTY was another masterpiece created by Joe Looney (see STILLPEPE for further information about Joe). The card depicts three Counterparty developers - Evan Wagner (Top Left), Robby Dermody (Top Right), and Adam Krellenstein (Bottom). Bitcoin maximalists get angry at Counterparty users for trading Rare Pepes and other assets on "their" blockchain. Thus Joe's tongue-in-cheek "Spamming the block chain since January 2014" comment. In reality, they should be thanking Counterparty users. They gave Bitcoin one of it's first true use cases.
Series 1, Card 8 - KEISERPEPE
Series 1, Card 8 - KEISERPEPE was created by Rare Pepe Scientist Theo Goodman. He created a total of 12 cards for the Rare Pepe project. Theo used a screen capture of American broadcaster and film maker Max Keiser when he lost it live on air during his January 23, 2014 Keiser Report show which was broadcast on the RT television network from 2009 until 2022.
Series 1, Card 9 - BUPEPE
Series 1, Card 9 - BUPEPE was created by Rare Pepe Scientist Shawn Leary. The original image is was from the duo's July 18, 2016 podcast clip entitled "One Coin (aka One Life) Ponzi Meeting Bombed! Undercover Audio Footage." It shows Bitcoin Uncensored podcast host Junseth kissing Chris DeRose's back side.
Series 1, Card 10 - STILLPEPE
Series 1, Card 10 - STILLPEPE was created by Joe Looney. Not only did Joe create 13 amazing Rare Pepe cards including PEPEPARTY, IMWITHPEPE, PEPEGOTCHI, and BADHAIRDAY he wrote the Rarepepe wallet software purely to benefit fans of Rare Pepe's. Here is a Medium article where Joe was interviewed by R.A.R.E Art Labs about the RPW.
The STILLPEPE card displays "Pepefied" versions of American Rappers Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. A link to the video on YouTube is below.
Series 1, Card 11 - PEPECASH
Series 1, Card 11 - PEPECASH was created by Mike. Not only was PEPECASH a Series 1 card, it quickly became the de facto currency of Rare Pepe card buyers and sellers. In late 2017 PEPECASH received the same categorization as Bitcoin as a “first class” cryptocurrency in Japan, and one of only 17 digital tokens that could be legally be traded at the time.
Series 1, Card 12 - LOVEPEPETATO
Series 1, Card 12 - LOVEPEPETATO was created by the late, great John Villar. He was a Counterparty developer, artist, and Rare Pepe Scientist among other things. John created 82 cards for the Rare Pepe project. The subject of this card is the President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Moros in front of some of the many slums in the country. Maduro has been described as a dictator by various world leaders, and his presidency has been under dispute since 2019.
Series 1, Card 13 - PEPEJOINTSPH
Series 1, Card 13 - PEPEJOINTSPH was created by the late, great John Villar. John created a whopping 82 cards for the Rare Pepe Project including 50 for the game he had been developing at the time of his passing Rare Pepe Party.
Series 1, Card 14 - GURUPEPE
Series 1, Card 14 - GURUPEPE was created by artist, auctioneer extraordinaire, and all around good guy Theo Goodman. He also created the Series 1 cards PEPENATION, KEISERPEPE, HYIPPEPE, and PONZIPEPE along with several other great cards such as EGGPLANTPEPE and GROYPERMONKY.
The man pictured on the card is Vinay Gupta, Co-Founder of Ethereum. As Theo put it, "he calls himself a GURU. He says a lot of random shit that "sounds smart" and sometimes has some good moments but also some like this. It's funny, he kind of just went out of the spotlight, after making mega-millions during the first bull run of ETH. He was a major part of the founding of ETH, but many people from this wave have no idea who he is. Sure, a big guy that has trouble walking, saying that he is going to break peoples bones because they are white and buddist, is a great style. WATCH OUT he comes from a linage of warriors! The main issue is I've never seen him laugh at himself once."
Here is a lengthy article about him from Forbes. While researching the card, I asked the question "who is displayed in GURUPEPE?" to Theo, when Rare Pepe OG Shawn Leary jumped in with the answer. When I agreed with him, he followed up with one of the greatest one liners in Rare Pepe History: "I know I'm right. I'm a retired Rare Pepe Scientist." I should have known better than to question Shawn!
Series 1, Card 15 - HYIPPEPE
Series 1, Card 15 - HYIPPEPE was created by Theo Goodman. Theo is a retired Rare Pepe scientist, artist, and auctioneer. He had this to say about HYIPPEPE and PONZIPEPE (animated version), "On HYIPPEPE and PONZIPEPE are the top ponzis of the time, including ONECOIN, MMM, SWISSCOIN and the first telegram bot ponzi (I forgot the name, maybe just telegram robot) at the time all of these were making the rounds and had a major impact on the crypto landscape. MMM is older than bitcoin and had a crypto version that went wild in 2016."
Series 1, Card 16 - PEPETRATION
Series 1, Card 16 - PEPETRATION was created by an unknown artist. This was their only submission to the Rare Pepe project. The artist drew a wojak family celebrating the US holiday of Thanksgiving, replacing the traditional turkey with a Pepe and a the turkey baster with a green candle.
Series 1, Card 17 - DARKPILLPEPE
Series 1, Card 17 -DARKPILLPEPE was created by DanDarkPill. He created a total of 26 cards for the Rare Pepe project. The main subject of the card is a green-tinted Victor Joseph Espinoza, the Orange County California resident who was sentenced to 32 months in jail for grabbing a 10-year-old boy.
Series 1, Card 18 - HAIRPEPE
Series 1, Card 18 - HAIRPEPE was created by ayaLAN, who sadly lost the keys to the wallet from which it was issued. This card is considered a "grail" by most in the Rare Pepe community due to its unique look. Yuki Himura, a Japanese comedian, inspires the image immortalized in this card. The text on the card references Pantene hair products and Maybelline makeup. The card is also highly sought after because it permits entry to one of the earliest art-based private Telegram rooms - "The Salon." A Telegram bot scans your wallet for the card. If it is present, it grants you entry to the private room. If you ever move the card out of the wallet you used to gain entry (to sell it, for example), the bot would kick you out of the room during one of its frequent wallet scans.
Series 1, Card 19 - LUCKYPEPE
Series 1, Card 19 - LUCKYPEPE was created by the mysterious figure DanDarkPill. He created a total of 26 cards for the Rare Pepe project.
The subject of this card is the maneki-neko or "beckoning cat," a common Japanese figurine which is believed to bring good luck to shop owners. The earliest records of maneki-neko appear in the Bukō nenpyō's (a chronology of Edo) entry dated 1852. Because of its popularity in Chinese and Vietnamese communities (including Chinatowns in the United States), the maneki-neko is frequently mistaken for being Chinese in origin rather than Japanese, and is therefore sometimes referred to as a "Chinese lucky cat."
Series 1, Card 20 - CHERPEPEFOIL
Series 1, Card 20 - CHERPEPEFOIL was created by the late great John Villar. He may hold the record for most Rare Pepe cards in the project at 80. John created 50 cards specifically for the game Rare Pepe Party which he was working on at the time of his passing and another 40 cards beyond that including what is probably the first interactive digital art token - PEPEBALT.
This card is a pepefied image of the American singer, actress and television personality Cher. The card quotes a lyric from her song Believe
Series 1, Card 21 - PEPEBROS
Series 1, Card 21 - PEPEBROS was created by an unknown artist. They only created two cards for the Rare Pepe project. The other one being MAGICPEPEYE.
This card pays homage to the 1985 platform game developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) called Super Mario Bros. It appears that the artist created his own scene from the game, or perhaps took a scene, increased the size until it was at a 1:1 pixel ratio and then added the sun with the face of a Wojak.
Series 1, Card 22 - DAOPEPEHACK
Series 1, Card 22 - DAOPEPEHACK was created by Héctor Cárdenas. He also created HARDPEPEFORK, PEPEMINING, and RARECHAVEZ. The person depicted in the card is Stephan Tual, the CCO of the Ethereum Foundation at the time of the first major hack on any blockchain entitled the DAO Hack which ultimately split the Ethereum community into two camps - those that believed the blockchain should be rolled back to the pre-hack state and those that did not. This resulted in the formation of ETC or Ethereum Classic. Here is an interview with Stephan that was done on Medium by Ameer Rosic.
Series 1, Card 23 - PEPEBONGSPHP
Series 1, Card 23 - PEPEBONGSPHP was created by the late great John Villar - a long-time lead developer at Counterparty. The card appears to be a simple tribute to the water pipe known as a Bong that is commonly used for smoking tobacco and marijuana.
Series 1, Card 24 - PEPEONECOIN
Series 1, Card 24 - PEPEONECOIN was created by DanDarkPill. Dan created 7 series 1 cards, the 6 card "Putin Set" and the 7 card "Rare Pepe History of Art Series Set" along with several other very memorable cards for the project before deleting his Twitter profile and disappearing from the public eye.
The person depicted in the card is Ruji Ignatova the founder of the OneCoin Ponzi scheme. She was recently added to the FBI's top 10 most wanted list. Once known as the "cryptoqueen" Ignatova has been missing since 2017. She is wanted for defrauding victims out of more than 4 billion dollars. Here is some further reading about Ignatova.
Series 1, Card 25 - PEPEVIAGRA
Series 1 Card 25 - PEPEVIAGRA was created by DanDarkPill. In the mid-1840s, ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) created a number of woodblock prints showing legendary tanuki (raccoon dogs) using their humorously large scrota in creative ways. You can view them here. In 2016 Dan took it upon himself to update Kuniyoshi's image by turning the Rokurokubi into a Pepe and the wielder of the monster a Wojak.
Series 1, Card 26 - PEPEGUN
Series1, Card 26 - PEPEGUN is another DanDarkPill creation. The card is a depiction of the then Cornell University Associate Professor Emin Gün Sirer. He is a former IC3 Co-Director, and the founder of Ava Labs.
Series 1, Card 27 - PEPEBOY
Series 1, Card 27 - PEPEBOY was created by an unknown artist. They created a total of three cards for the Rare Pepe project. The other two being PEPELLUM and GRIMPEPE.
The image on the card is a green version of the mascot of the Fallout media franchise known as Vault Boy. He debuted in the 1997 PC and Mac video game Fallout. Vault Boy has since achieved a level of cultural impact and viral recognition outside the game.
Series 1, Card 28 - DASHPEPE
Series 1, Card 28 - DASHPEPE was created by the artist ICQPEPE. ICQ created a total of 24 cards for the Rare Pepe series including the extremely rare 1 of 3 card JONGPEPE, the classic NOFAPPEPE, and what is probably the only artist "self portrait" in the series ICQPEPE. The card depicts the creator of the crypto currency Dash - Evan Duffield and the image was taken from a cointelegraph article discussing the second birthday of Dash.
You can listen to ICQ talk about this and all his cards in the YouTube interview he did with ZeroG below.
Series 1, Card 29 - TLCPEPE
Series 1, Card 29 - TLCPEPE was created by Rare Pepe Scientist Shawn Leary. This is one of 15 cards Shawn created for the Rare Pepe project. The woman portrayed on the card is Toni Lane Casserly who was known as the "Joan of Arc of Cryptocurrency." She was a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and co-founder of CoinTelegraph and CULTU.RE. Sadly, Toni passed away in 2020 at the age of 29.
Series 1, Card 30 - BANEPEPE
Series 1, Card 30 - BANEPEPE was created by an unknown artist. This and TOPCUCK are the only cards attributed to this person. Bane is a supervilain that first appeared in American comic books published by DC Comics. The text on the card is an adapted version of what Bane said to Batman during their first fight seen in the 2012 motion picture The Dark Knight Rises.
Series 1, Card 31 - HARDPEPEFORK
Series 1, Card 31 - HARDPEPEFORK was created by the artist known as Hcarpach. The subject of the card is very similar to the artist's other Series 1 card - DAOPEPEHACK, namely Stephan Tual, Vitalik Buterin (the founder of the cryptocurrency Ethereum), and the infamous DAO Hack.
Series 1, Card 32 - ONLYONEPEPE
Series 1, Card 32 - ONLYONEPEPE was created by the one and only DanDarkPill. This was the first 1 of 1 card in the Rare Pepe project and made it possible for only 1 person to ever own all 50 cards of Series 1. That man goes by the name of NeedMoney90 on Telegram. On April 1, 2017 NM announced that he had purchased ONLYONEPEPE, JONGPEPE, and LORDKEK for 11 BTC ($12,001 USD at the time) on bitcointalk.org.
Series 1, Card 35 - XOBLORTPEPE
Series 1, Card 35 - XOBLORTPEPE was created by the artist known as Horus according to this article. This card was done as a tribute to a user with the handle XOBLORT who was an admin of the in-site live chat room dubbed the TROLLBOX on the crypto exchange site Poloniex. As Mr. Blort had administrator rights, he was able to ban users of the service. Another card that celebrates the TROLLBOX is Series 1, Card 39 - PEPEBEEFTAXI. On that card, the artist Robness (who's username on Poloniex was GROUNDBEEFTAXI) wrote "I've been banned by the banhammer by like 50,000 hours already." The Troll Box was disabled in 2017 to let moderators instead focus on customer support.
Series 1, Card 36 - MAGICPEPEYE
Series 1, Card 36 - MAGICPEPEYE was created by the same unknown artist that created PEPEBROS which are the only two cards they contributed to the project. The card pays homage to the early 1990's fad called Magic Eye which began as a series of books but quickly expanded to posters, wall calendars, greating cards, and more. The term for this type of image is "autostereogram" which is a two-dimensional image that can create the optical illusion of a three-dimensional scene.
Series 1, Card 38 - PEPELLUM
Series 1, Card 38 - PEPELLUM was created by an unknown artist. They created a total of three cards for the Rare Pepe project. The image used for the card is a still of the character Gollum, from the American fantasy adventure film, The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was voiced in the film by actor Andy Serkis.
Series 1, Card 39 - PEPEBEEFTAXI
Series 1, Card 39 - PEPEBEEFTAXI was created by the artist known as Robness. He is credited with five cards in the Rare Pepe project, but Rob may be most known for a card that he collaborated on known as LORDKEK.
For this card, Rob used an image from the international public art exhibit known as the CowParade. This exhibit has been featured in major world cities and allows local artists to decorate fiberglass sculptures of cows which are then placed in public places in the city. The original cow sculpture was created by the Swiss-born sculptor Pascal Knapp. The cow pictured is known as Taxi Cow and was displayed in New York City. It was later offered for sale as a figurine. You can find the image in this article which looks at the history of cow tunnels in New York during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Series 1, Card 40 - PONZIPEPE
Series 1, Card 40 - PONZIPEPE was created by Rare Pepe Scientist Theo Goodman. In total, Theo had 22 cards accepted into the directory. With the tag line "better than gold, safer money," images of various internet scams such as ONECOIN on the monitor and a slot machine the card seems to tell the story of how a crying Pepe the frog was scammed out of his hard-earned money.
Physical Version
In 2023, Theo introduced a literal PONZIPEPE rug. With it you could "demonstrate a real rug pull with your friends, show off at your dinner party, and be the first on your block with a real rug pull." Ten of these were created and the first was purchased during the 2023 Pepe Fest that was held in Paris, France for 500k sats. The rug was featured in the following galleries: L'Avant Galerie Vossen, Ilham Gallery. Included with the physical rug was a sub-asset called PONZIPEPE.RUG which proved provenance because sub-assets can only be issued by the owner of the main asset.
Series 1, Card 41 - JONGPEPE
Series 1, Card 41 - JONGPEPE was created by ICQPEPE. The image on the card is a pepefied version of the then supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong Il taken in 2011 when he was in talks with Russia's Dmitry Medvedev regarding their nuclear program. There are only 3 JONGPEPE in existence. When the card was minted, ICQ wrote, "Strong Pepe Leader" as the description. Shortly thereafter the ownership of the token was transferred and the description was changed to, "$1milUSD EQUIVALENT!! JONGPEPE 1/3+ASSET OWNERSHIP+COPYRIGHT" implying that the current owner of the token is willing to sell it for $1M USD. Rare Pepe Wallet creator and scientist Joe Looney confirmed that he bought all 3 of the cards for 0.99 XCP from the dex in this transaction. Joe stated, "I didn't realize it was a 3/3 at the time". ICQPEPE wasted no time in listing all 3 of his creations on the dex. In fact, he created the order before he even locked the token.
Series 1, Card 42 - IMWITHPEPE
Series 1, Card 42 - IMWITHPEPE was created by Rare Pepe Scientist, Rare Pepe Wallet creator, and all around good guy Joe Looney. This is one of 13 cards created by Joe for the Rare Pepe project. The card portrays a pepefied version of Hillary Clinton and a modified version of her unofficial 2016 presidential campaign slogan "I'm With Her." ("Stronger Together" was the official slogan).
Series 1, Card 43 - DEBATEPEPE
Series 1, Card 43 - DEBATEPEPE was created by NeedMoney90. This card pays homage to the 2016 United States presidential debates. Specifically the debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Series 1, Card 44 - TROUTPEPE
Series 1, Card 44 - TROUTPEPE was created by an unknown artist and it is the only card they created for the Rare Pepe Project. According to the user Trout on Telegram, the card was named after him and was created because he was a well known altcoin trader on Twitter back in the day. The symbols under the trout's fin represent some of the altcoin bags Trout was holding at the time. The term shitcoin refers to any altcoin created after Bitcoin that has little to no value or discernible purpose.
Series 1, Card 45 - HERNIAPEPE
Series 1, Card 45 - HERNIAPEPE was created by an unknown artist. This was their only contribution to the Rare Pepe project. The subject of the card is former Bitcoin Core developer Mike Hern who famously rage quit the project and declaired that he sold all his coins. The black and white sketch used for the card came from a 2014 Cointelegraph article about Mr. Hern.
Series 1, Card 46 - PEPEMINING
Series 1, Card 46 - PEPEMINING was created by Hcarpach who has a total of 4 cards in the Directory. The image and text speak to the fact that the majority of the Bitcoin network's mining hashrate was based in China at the time (2016) substituting Pepe for Bitcoin for comedic effect. That all changed in 2021 when China officially banned Bitcoin mining. Even with the "ban" in place, China is 3rd on the list of top Bitcoin mining countries after the United States and Russia.
Series 1, Card 47 - TOPCUCK
Series 1, Card 47 - TOPCUCK was created by an unknown artist. This and BANEPEPE were the only two cards contributed to the project by the artist. The card is an odd pairing of a character from the American animated sitcom South Park a random person from a 2016 Donald Trump rally in St. Louis, Missouri. The South Park image is of the character PC Principal taken from Season 19 Episode 1 of the show entitled "Stunning and Brave." The YouTube clip was first aired on the Alex Jones program but has since been taken down. Another version has been found and it is available below. The text on the card "Are You Kidding Me" is a quote from the guy the internet has dubbed "Carl the Cuck."
Series 1, Card 48 - PEPEPOPE
Series 1, Card 48 - PEPEPOPE was created by the artist known as Boost. He created a total of 25 cards for the Rare Pepe project and is the creator of the Rare Pepe offshoot project - Dank Rare Agency. PEPEPOPE is a parody of the December 11, 2013 Time Magazine cover which named Roman Catholic Pope Francis the Person of the Year.
Series 1, Card 49 - NOFAPPEPE
Series 1, Card 49 - NOFAPPEPE was created by the artist known as ICQPEPE, a prolific creator with 54 cards accepted into the Rare Pepe Directory. Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion has long been associated with so-called "fapping". One can only infer that Pepe is crying because he's fighting the urge to use the lotion for that purpose, thus healing himself.
Series 1, Card 50 - FORTYTWOPEPE
Series 1, Card 50 - FORTYTWOPEPE was created by the sole owner of all 50 Series 1 cards, NeedMoney90. The image on the card was taken from the cover of the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Everything on the card references parts of the book including the saying "Don't Panic", the number 42, "the answer to life, the universe, and everything", the towel, the whale, the bowl of petunias, and Beeblebrox.
Last updated