The non-fungible token market has already seen a dramatic rise and fall in 2021, but though some unique tokens have failed to hold their perceived value, another one immediately identifiable in the crypto community saw a record-breaking sale this week. Doge, the dog image meme that’s the face of its own cryptocurrency currently seeing its own huge market swings, sold for about $4 million this week after a bidding war saw the price soar.
According to NBC News, an auction of the Shiba Inu image that became the infamous Doge meme took place this week and made the owner of the image behind the meme behind the coin very wealthy.
The meme was first put up for auction on Tuesday by Atsuko Sato, the owner of Kabosu, the dog from the image, and ran for roughly three days before being sold to @pleasrdao.
A bidding war for the meme broke out on Zora, where Doge was being auctioned, between users @twodollahotdoge and @pleasrdao on Friday afternoon, driving up the price until @pleasrdao prevailed with the winning bid.
The original Doge became internet famous after it was posted to its owner’s blog in 2010. Though the meme has endured, it has seen a more recent rise in popularity after the joke currency based on its meme, Dogecoin, rocketed back to prominence among crypto enthusiasts after being essentially valueless for years. And now the single image of Doge holds the record for the most expensive NFT ever sold. The winning bid, 1,696.9 units of Ethereum, is worth about $4 million. And given the meme-ness of it all, those 69s seem to hold some symbolism here as well.
Interestingly enough, the internet meme database Know Your Meme was apparently involved in verifying that this was the actual owner of the original photo, too.
“We’re so happy to be a part of this milestone in internet history. If any meme deserved to be the new meme NFT record holder, it’s Doge,” said Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of Know Your Meme.
It just goes to show you: never stop posting photos of your pets online. You never know what they’ll be worth someday.
[via NBC News]