The nonfungible token craze continues.
According to NBC News, an NFT of the iconic “Doge” image sold Friday for a record-breaking sum on the auction website Zora. The lucky buyer was identified as user @pleasrdao, who shelled out 1,696.9 of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, which is reportedly worth about $4 million. The sale has effectively made “Doge” the most expensive NFT meme to date—significantly surpassing the sale prices of “Disaster Girl,” “Nyan Cat,” and “Bad Luck Brian.”
NBC News reports the Know Your Meme database certified the “Doge” meme before this week’s auction. The team confirmed the NFT was being sold by Atsuko Sato, the owner of the Shiba Inu pictured in the meme.
“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,” Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of Know Your Meme, told NBC News.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale will go toward charitable organizations, including the World Food Programme and the Japanese Red Cross Society.
According to Know Your Meme, Sato posted a photo of her rescue dog—real name Kabosu—in 2010, about three years before the image received the meme treatment. Internet users eventually began referring to the animal as “Doge,” a slang term that originated in the once-popular web series Homestar Runner. Since then, the meme has become the face of Dogecoin, a wildly popular cryptocurrency touted by Mark Cuban, the Winklevoss twins, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Zora is expected to auction off seven other photos of the “Doge” next Friday.
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