Creator of Pepe the Frog meme to release NFT collection featuring the character

Matt Furie, creator of the internet meme “Pepe the Frog,” will release a limited collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The artist told Decrypt.

The PEGZ collection includes NFTs featuring portraits of the characters created by the author in two-dimensional, three-dimensional and animated forms. For every ten tokens collected, users will receive an additional one — featuring Pepe.

“This is a playful project inspired by the collectibles from my youth, namely pogs. For collectors, the first items are always the best. We start with these token-like objects that feature portraits of my pets,” Furie said.

In an interview with The Washington Post, the author explained that his interest in NFTs is largely driven by the possibility to challenge people’s notions of ownership.

“Everything else is bootlegs. I am very inspired by bootlegs in my life and in my art,” the artist noted.

Furie created “Pepe the Frog” in 2006. The meme is freely used by a range of people: from forum users to participants in far-right movements.

In 2019 the author filed a lawsuit against Infowars for the unlawful use of the image. The case was settled in 2020 — the site owners agreed to pay Furie $15,000.

In April 2021 the artist sold an NFT featuring Pepe’s first image for 420 ETH (~$1 million at the time). The buyer was a collector going by the nickname punk4156.

“Pepe is the most memorable and copyable object in the history of the Internet, perhaps in world history. In this sense, the original image from which it all began can rightly be called the ‘Mona Lisa’ of our generation,” the collector told Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.

Earlier, the Rarible platform organized an auction in which a frame from the 1995 black-and-white film ‘Alien Autopsy’ was offered as an NFT. The starting price was 450 WETH (more than $1.2 million).

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