CryptoPepes was launched as an ambitious 2018 NFT collectible and breeding game on Ethereum, with attractive art and a unique initial distribution method. Only 1100 Generation 0 CryptoPepe NFTs were created, with genetics randomly generated and stored onchain. These Pepes formed the genetic pool for all subsequent CryptoPepes, which had to be bred by a mother and father CryptoPepe, passing on their genetics to the next generation. At launch 100 Generation 0 CryptoPepes were minted to the team.
The remaining 1000 were bred by the
Miner Contract, which were held in
another contract where they could only be claimed by burning 100 DPEP tokens. These DPEP tokens could only be earned as a reward for PoW mining that operated on Ethereum, and the process of mining bred the 1000 Generation 0 CryptoPepes. This launch was equitable as anyone could participate during the mining period, affectionately known as "the rat race".
There were plans to launch an independant layer 1 PoS blockchain, "pepechain", to migrate the CryptoPepes and planned game functions to, but those plans were never realized. The utility token for planned pepechain was also distributed to miners as a reward, in the form of PEP.
There were plans to also make a battle style game and build it's own blockchain called 'pepechain' but this never eventuated. The revival team is planning to bring a battle game to life.
The
Original 2018 Contract, built before ERC-721 was finalized, is not compatible with Opensea and other NFT Marketplaces, and has gas inefficiency problems when transferring tokens. By 2021 the supply of the Original CryptoPepes was 5496.
In 2021 the
CryptoPepes 2021 Replica collection was launched which minted copies of CryptoPepes up until tokenID 5496, and any after this could be bred on the new and
improved contract. The contract has the breeding functionality from the original 2018 contract, while being compatible with Marketplaces and gas efficient. This contract however does not wrap the Original 2018 CryptoPepes.
In 2023 it was decided to create a wrapper contract which could hold the 5496 Original 2018 CryptoPepes, and mint a matching NFT. The breeding functionality is not included as it would allow an infinite supply of CryptoPepes. Only an Original 2018 CryptoPepe can be wrapped and unwrapped indefinitely. Read more about it under
Why is a wrapper contract needed?
Today, CryptoPepes exist as collectible, historical NFTs and the first Pepe PFP collection.