Yet in recent years, in the separate space of crypto-art, Pepe has played a prominent role while staying mostly free of such political associations. Collectors began trading fan-made memes, called Rare Pepes, and in 2016, a developer created the online platform Rare Pepe Wallet for buying, selling and exchanging them like trading cards. By early 2018, a first-of-its-kind live Rare Digital Art Festival was held in Manhattan, during which online marketer Peter Kell bought the “Homer Pepe” card — an NFT depicting Homer Simpson with a green Pepe-like face — for nearly $40,000. This year, Kell sold the NFT — once dubbed “the rarest Pepe” — for more than $300,000.
