I should never cease being amazed by the internet, but today I went down a strange, strange, rabbit hole. I am now aware of things like Pepecash and Rare Pepes.

(Shoutout to @elma-landro for a pretty good introduction for newbies: https://steemit.com/art/@elma-landro/rare-pepe-community-we-need-you-you-need-kek-so)

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this topic. The following is a brief synopsis of my basic understanding, just to catch you up

A Newb's Brief History of Rare Pepes

So, basically there are thousands of drawings/photoshops of Pepe the Frog floating around the internet. At some point a few people started hoarding personal galleries of these images, nabbed from posts of variations of the Pepe meme. In 2015 there started to be ebay auctions and the like selling these collections.

Once there was value (real or imagined) placed on the Rare Pepes, folks started to watermark theirs so that they could show them off while still maintaining "ownership". This worked for a little while, but there was still the issue that "selling" a Rare Pepe really just multiplied supply since the original owner would still have access to it. Additionally, there was no way to control other owners of the same Pepe from giving it away cheap or free.

Enter the Blockchain

Blockchain technology provides an interesting tool for Rare Pepe owners/collectors. There is now a public ledger showing ownership of these images, as if they were cards.

These are the details I'm not totally sure of, but be sure to check out the post linked above for accurate info. Apparently there is some sort of council responsible for reviewing applications of new Pepes and then releasing them into the community. They take PepeCash (the most ubiquitous "rare" Pepe, used for buying other Pepes) as an application fee and, in order to deflate the economy, destroy half of the fees.

What's the Game Plan?

I really can't decide what to do about this. It is truly the most interesting alt-coin to me since Doge, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That said, the methodology for running the meme seems to easily controverted, so I wouldn't want to risk much on checking them out. For the keks, I am going to look into obtaining at least one rare pepe, just as a souveneir. Who knows, maybe it will be worth something someday (or nothing, more likely).

What are your thoughts? Are any of you already into this craze and have advice on where to get started?