Doge, the classic meme behind the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE), has sold as a nun-fungible token (NFT) for about $4 million in an auction.
What Happened: @pleasrdao emerged as the auction winner after placing the highest bid of 1,696.9 of the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH), worth about $4.06 million, auction site Zora announced on Twitter. This makes Doge the most expensive meme to be sold as NFT so far, as per Zora.
Congratulations to @PleasrDAO for winning the original #Doge NFT auction! 🥳
Won at 1.696.9 ETH ($4.06 million)‼️
Today, you made history for us at Zora & @kabosumama by buying the most expensive meme of all time 🤯🚀 pic.twitter.com/nKa0fNPH3K
— ZORA ☼☽ (@ourZORA) June 11, 2021
The meme was put up for auction by Japanese nursery teacher Atsuko Sato, the owner of Kabosu, the female Shiba Inu that featured in the original meme.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the NFT will go toward several charities, including the Japanese Red Cross Society and the World Food Programme, according to a report by CNBC.
Why It Matters: Doge is an Internet meme that became popular in 2013. The meme, based on a 2010 photograph of Kabosu, consists of a picture of a Shiba Inu dog accompanied by multicolored text in Comic Sans font in the foreground.
Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency based on Doge and created mainly as a joke in 2013, has shot to prominence this year, in major part due to endorsement from Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.
Some NFT artworks have recorded sky-high valuations lately, with Beeple’s ‘The First 5000 Days’ NFT based digital artwork being sold for $69 million in an auction in March. It was reported in April that another popular meme, “Disaster Girl”, sold for nearly $500,000 at an auction.
Price Action: Dogecoin is almost 4% higher during the past 24 hours and is trading at $0.3236 at press time.
