Pepenardo has remodeled six copies of Bitcoin Journal’s 2036 Situation into authentic artworks, drawing immediately onto the covers with a Sharpie. The hand-altered editions function acquainted characters from his visible universe, together with the Sleeping Knights, beforehand exhibited on the BMAG Museum in Nashville and Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. Different imagery contains the masked rider of FAKEGENESIS, Dorian Nakamoto, and Pepe the Frog.
Every journal options the artist’s signature on its illustrated cowl and an extra gold-ink signature on an inside unfold reproducing his portray THE DREAMER. Every is paired with two authentic, one-of-one buying and selling playing cards created for the collaboration.
The challenge displays BTC Inc.’s rising curiosity in artwork, publishing, and collectibles, constructing on Pepenardo’s MEMETIKRON exhibition at Bitcoin 2026, the place THE DREAMER (RED KNIGHT) and THE DREAMLESS (GREEN KNIGHT) turned highlights of the BMAG public sale.
The 2 oil work, every measuring 30 × 39.5 inches, depict reclining knights in crimson and inexperienced armor, referencing monetary markets and historic portraiture. Each bought for 0.32698802 BTC (roughly $26,500 every), attracting a mixed 197 bids. Their imagery now reappears in artist-made buying and selling playing cards that includes alternate colorways, remixed compositions, and painted by hand Creator Uncommon editions impressed by conventional textiles.
Amid a booming buying and selling card market, Pepenardo’s work bridges portray and handheld collectibles, the place shortage, provenance, and variation form worth. His relationship with this market started nicely earlier than the Sleeping Knights.
In 2023, his portray FAKEGENESIS, a reinterpretation of Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps that includes a masked rider on a inexperienced horse, bought on the Bitcoin Convention in Miami for 1.625 BTC. Initially created as a Pretend Rares card in 2022, the composition turned an early landmark for bodily Bitcoin artwork, demonstrating the rising collector curiosity in paintings rising from Bitcoin’s meme tradition.
FAKEGENESIS later appeared on the again cowl of Bitcoin Journal, with prints out there by way of the publication’s retailer. Its return as a hand-drawn journal cowl completes an uncommon development from buying and selling card to portray, printed replica, and authentic collectible.
Bitcoin Journal itself has a accumulating historical past courting to its first difficulty in Could 2012, co-founded by Mihai Alisie and Vitalik Buterin. At a bitcoin occasion in London in September 2012, seven copies of the inaugural difficulty had been signed by greater than 20 early bitcoin figures. One attracted a profitable bid of seven BTC, though the client by no means accomplished the acquisition or collected the journal.
Early points have since develop into sought-after historic artifacts, with graded copies and uncommon editions attracting collectors. In 2023, Bitcoin Journal launched the Genesis Field, a restricted version of 21 collector’s units containing the publication’s first 22 points, every housed in protecting acrylic circumstances.
Very like early exhibition catalogs, first-edition books, and live performance posters, Bitcoin Journal has developed worth past its authentic publishing function. Pepenardo’s personalized covers prolong that historical past, turning the publication itself right into a one-of-one paintings.
I spoke with Pepenardo about his work, buying and selling playing cards, and evolving relationship with Bitcoin Journal, and with Mark Mason, Head of Media at Bitcoin Journal, concerning the historic significance of the publication and its rising collector market.
BMAG: This collaboration got here collectively rapidly after you observed the clean area on the quilt of the Bitcoin Journal difficulty that includes your work. What impressed you to show these magazines into authentic artworks, and the way do you see them becoming alongside your work and buying and selling playing cards?
Pepenardo: I couldn’t assist however discover that welcoming clean area on the quilt. It appeared like an apparent place for a drawing. Coincidentally, I got here into Bitcoin by way of watching the vitality round buying and selling playing cards on Counterparty, from 2016 all the best way to the current. Hal Finney foreshadowed this ethos in his well-known 1993 e mail titled “Crypto buying and selling playing cards.” After all he was speaking about digital collectibles, however the precept stays the identical. Bitcoin’s historical past has a magnetic pull on collectibles; folks wish to maintain on to a fraction of such an essential fashionable historical past. Once we look again fifty years from now, the content material and the artifacts that got here out of the motion will assist future generations make sense of Bitcoin’s large timeline.
BMAG: The 2 knights, THE DREAMER and THE DREAMLESS, started as oil work exhibited and bought at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. They’ve since appeared in Bitcoin Journal and now as authentic buying and selling playing cards with completely different variations. How does the which means of those characters change as they transfer between portray, publication, and collectible card? What guidelines information your remixed variations, and had been you stunned by how rapidly the playing cards bought out?
Pepenardo: I used to be shocked at how rapidly they went. I’ve no phrases. But it surely actually reinforces that what I’m making an attempt to create and construct with my work has some worth. Having the ability to use the buying and selling playing cards as a solution to remix the unique works lets me enrich the life of every portray. The mediums are completely different – oil on canvas for the work, numerous print strategies for the buying and selling playing cards – however the tedious care that goes into executing each is similar.
BMAG: FAKEGENESIS turned a defining work in your profession, transferring from Pretend Rares into an authentic portray that attracted vital consideration at Bitcoin 2023 in Miami. Wanting again, what do you bear in mind about that second, and the way did it change your follow and the viewers in your work?
Pepenardo: FAKEGENESIS will at all times be the pivotal work that confirmed me how I ought to correctly method my artwork. I knew that even earlier than it bought. It’s a portray that embeds the tropes of Bitcoin’s ethos with out being too apparent. Artwork throughout the context of Bitcoin shouldn’t must throw an enormous B at you on a regular basis; it ought to provide the fiery sensation of standing inside a brand new historical past being constructed. My hope is that it’s remembered as a piece that represents a complete motion – onwards and upwards.
BMAG: Bitcoin Journal’s earliest points have develop into historic artifacts in their very own proper, from signed copies of Situation 1 and graded editions to the Genesis Field assortment. Even figures like Michael Saylor have signed covers that includes themselves for charity auctions. What offers these publications their enduring collectible worth, and the way do you see artist-customized covers like Pepenardo’s becoming into that historical past?
Mark Mason: For over a decade, Bitcoin Journal has documented the evolution of Bitcoin, from its early technical developments to the folks and tradition surrounding it. We see every bodily difficulty as a time capsule, capturing a specific second in Bitcoin’s journey towards hyperbitcoinization.
One of many largest components driving their collectible worth is that we by no means reprint previous editions. Every difficulty has a restricted print run, making a finite provide that has made early editions, graded copies, and signed covers more and more wanted by collectors.
Bitcoin has at all times existed on the intersection of know-how, economics, and tradition. Artist-customized covers like Pepenardo’s take that relationship a step additional, remodeling an already collectible publication into an authentic paintings. It’s an extension of what Bitcoin Journal has develop into: each a document of Bitcoin’s historical past and an artifact of that historical past itself.
Pepenardo’s customized journal covers and buying and selling card units bought out shortly after launch, with all six one-of-one editions discovering collectors. Further works stay out there, together with MASTER CUTS OUT THE STONE (after Hemessen), the centerpiece portray from Pepenardo’s MEMETIKRON exhibition, which traveled from the BMAG Museum in Nashville to Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas.
Collectors also can discover FAKEGENESIS prints and the Genesis Field, a limited-edition collector’s set preserving the publication’s first 22 points from 2012–2014.
The Bitcoin Museum & Artwork Gallery (BMAG) organizes worldwide exhibitions, auctions, and artist collaborations exploring Bitcoin and its cultural implications. Discover out there works from Curtis William Readel’s exhibition Paper Cash, together with extra prints, authentic artworks, and collectibles.
BMAG returns to Bitcoin Amsterdam, November 4–6, 2026, that includes European artists exploring cash, energy, and Bitcoin. Learn extra in The Structure of Cash and The Undercurrent. Use code BA26-BMAG20 for discounted admission.
