A Series 1 Rare Pepe Nakamoto Card was sold for a whopping $500,000 on November 5 during the third annual NFT.NYC conference. Mint Gold Dust, a digital ecosystem for connecting creators, sold the NFT to MetaKovan, who is famous for buying Beeple’s NFT for a record $69 million earlier this year. The vintage NFT auction was part of a series of auctions to showcase Mint Gold Dust’s marketplace.
“During the last NFT.NYC in early 2020, 99% of the people that I mentioned Rare Pepe or other vintage NFTs to, did not know what they were,” Theo Goodman, Auctioneer at the event said in a press release. “This year, every person that I asked knew what it was. The striking visual contrast between these vintage artworks and collectable modern mass-produced NFTs is something most people see right away, and this auction was evidence of that.”
Rare Pepe NFT auction during NFT.NYC. Credits: Mint Gold Dust
All about the Rare Pepe NFT that sold for $500,000
Rare Pepes are a vintage series based on Pepe the Frog meme, created by Matt Furie. These were minted as digital collectible cards in 2016. Following the surge in NFTs, collectors have been using a software protocol called Emblem Vault to wrap these vintage tokens into ERC-21 tokens. This means that collectors can list these Rare Peper for sale on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea.
The Satoshi Nakamoto Rare Pepe NFTs were first issued in September 2016 to honour Satoshi Nakamoto, who is believed to be the creator of Bitcoin. The card states that it is “one of the most rare Pepes in existence”, with only 300 cards in total. As result, these Rare Pepe NFTs have sold for hefty sums. In September, another Nakamoto Rare Pepe was sold for 147 ETH or around $500,000 at the time.
The Rare Pep sold during Mint Gold Dust’s vintage NFT auction was originally valued at $25,000 early this year. The exhibition also featured a range of vintage NFTs including Pepenception, Bagholdrpepe, and The Surrealmint, among others.
Rare Pepe Nakamoto Card. Credits: OpenSea
“It means a lot that our auction attracted the attention of one of the most important investors in the NFT space, ahead of our full platform launch,” said Kelly LeValley Hunt, Founder and CEO of Mint Gold Dust.
What is Mint Gold Dust?
Mint Gold Dust is a curated NFT platform that highlights artists and collectors and focuses on high-quality artworks. It offers a 24/7 artist marketplace as well as a creative studio for creators. Moreover, it provides whitelabel solutions for both digital and physical NFTs.
During NFT.NYC, the platform also hosted its inaugural NFT exhibition, the Genesis 8 exhibition. For this, eight artists were tasked with expressing what Gold Dust meant for them using their artistic vision and style. Famed artists such as Hackatao, Bard Ionson, Gisel Florez, Lapin Mignon, and more were part of the exhibition.
“Each artist was inspired by the essence of creativity and wonder, resulting in deeply intimate and unique pieces,” said Eleonora Brizi, Mint Gold Dust Curator.
