Who is "top dog"? Taking stock of the seven most expensive Meme NFTs in history

Source: Sander Lutz, Decrypt

Compiled by: PANews

Last Monday, a photo of a dog wearing a beanie on a chain sold for just over $4.3 million. It sounds weird, but this photo is not just any dog (perhaps not that different), but Achi, the Shiba Inu from the iconic Internet meme “Dogwifhat”: the Shiba Inu.

The price of more than US$4.3 million also made this Achi NFT the most expensive meme NFT in history. But this is far from the first high-priced meme NFT. Over the years, the benign intersection of the Internet and encryption culture has contributed to a series of household-known meme NFTs.

The following is a list of the most expensive meme NFTs in history.

Dogwifhat**: 4.3 million$**

Dogwifhat Meme (partial). Source: Foundation

Last week, the Dogwifhat NFT sold for 1,210.759 ETH, worth $4,311,234 at the time of transaction. This sky-high price is largely due to the popularity of the original Dogwifhat meme online since late 2019. But the reason why this work fetched such a jaw-dropping price may be more due to the huge success of Solana’s meme coin WIF. In the past few months, the value of this meme coin inspired by Dogwifhat has skyrocketed.

Since its creation in December last year, the price of WIF has soared, with its market value exceeding the US$3 billion mark last week. Not long ago, several WIF community members raised nearly $700,000 to put Achi’s face on a giant spherical LED screen outside the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Auctioneer Path said that this NFT photo was randomly taken by Achi’s Korean owner in 2018. After deducting fees, the auction will bring in approximately US$4.1 million, much higher than expected. GCR, a well-known anonymous cryptocurrency trader, acquired the photo through an auction on the digital art platform Foundation.

Doge: $4.2 million

Kabosu, the meme prototype of Dogecoin. Source: Very.Auction

Until last week, the record for the most expensive meme NFT in history was still held by Doge, the originator of all dog memes.

The sale, which occurred on June 11, 2021, caused a stir during the heyday of NFTs, with the first multi-million-dollar price paid. The original image was a photo taken by Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato of her Shiba Inu Kabosu. This photo also formed the inspiration for the Doge meme.

The NFT was eventually sold for a higher ETH price than the Dogwifhat NFT: 1696.9 ETH. However, due to the low price of ETF at that time, it was equivalent to approximately US$4.234 million. The Doge meme was not only an integral part of the internet culture at the time, but also formed the foundation of the crypto world, as it inspired the first meme coin, Dogecoin.

“Doge is probably one of the most important memes in Internet culture.” Santiago Santos, a member of the investment collective PleasrDAO who purchased the Doge NFT, said at the time. PleasrDAO subsequently split the Doge NFT into billions of fragmented tokens, creating hundreds of millions of dollars in value and promoting an entire ecosystem of Doge-loving crypto users.

Pepe the Frog: 3.5 million$

On October 5, 2021, the original Pepe the Frog Genesis NFT created by Matt Furie was sold for a staggering 1,000 ETH, worth approximately $3.5 million at the time. This green amphibian that took the Internet by storm was once exploited by the far right.

Of course, Pepe is not only well-known in general Internet circles, but has also long been closely intertwined with crypto culture. Last year it inspired the highly successful meme coin Pepecoin on Ethereum.

It feels great. Source: Matt Furie

The Pepe NFT represents the first multi-frame comic file drawn by Furie depicting the character, created in November 2006. The buyer is Starry Night Capital, an NFT fund established in 2021 by crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and anonymous investor Vincent Van Dough.

In 2022, after the bankruptcy of Sanjian Capital, the liquidator confiscated the NFTs held by Sanjian and began to sell them to pay off debts. As part of the liquidation, the Pepe NFT was sold this week to crypto industry executive Andrew Kang with the assistance of Sotheby’s for an undisclosed amount.

Charlie bit my finger: $761,000

During the 2021 NFT craze, one of the most iconic early YouTube videos, “Charlie Bit My Finger”, also came to the chain. The parents of protagonist Charlie, who was teething at the time, and his brother had seen the success of other meme NFTs and wanted to turn their two children’s viral moment into a fund to pay for their college tuition.

The strategy worked quite well: On May 22, 2021, the video’s NFT was sold to Dubai-based collector 3FMusic for $760,999. Initially, the family planned to remove the video from YouTube after the sale to increase the importance of the NFT. According to reports, 3FMusic didn’t care if the video was taken down, so it remains on YouTube to this day.

Nyan Cat**: 59$ million**

Nyan Cat is a pixel animation of a cat that first took the Internet by storm in 2011. The cat’s body resembles a sandwich cookie. Ten years later, its creator, artist Chris Torres, considered selling the animation as an NFT. The interest generated by this NFT far exceeded expectations, and it basically opened up the concept of meme NFT as an asset class.

On February 19, 2021, before the cultural communication power of NFT had yet to explode, Torres sold the Nyan Cat NFT to an anonymous crypto user for 300 ETH (worth $590,000 at the time). In the months that followed, many other famous meme creators followed Torres’ lead and began auctioning off their iconic images as NFTs, allowing them to finally receive meaningful rewards and clear ownership for the pieces of internet history they created. .

“It became something of a trend, not just for me, but for a lot of meme artists who started doing stuff from then on. Before that, it was really hard for everyone,” Torres said in 2021 express.

Disaster Girl: 43$ million

Zoe Roth was one of the first legendary meme creators to follow in Torres’ footsteps. As a child, she took a picture in front of a burning building with a wicked smile on her face. The meme later became the Internet’s expression of “schadenfreude”. This meme, known as Disaster Girl, is one of the foundational memes of the early 21st century.

Disaster girl. Source: Zoe Roth

In mid-2021, Roth auctioned an NFT of the original photo of the meme on the NFT platform Foundation. On April 17, 2021, the NFT was sold for 180 ETH, which was worth approximately $430,000 at the time. This work eventually fell into the hands of 3FMusic, a collector who currently owns multiple NFTs on this list.

Overly Attached Girlfriend**: 411.$**

Spring 2021 is the heyday of Meme NFT auctions. Except for the top one (Dogwifhat), every piece on this list was sold in 2021, within a few months of Nyan Cat’s groundbreaking sale.

Laina Morris was permanently identified as “Overly Attached Girlfriend” in a meme in 2012. Shortly after the Nyan Cat auction, Morris began to explore blockchain technology and auctioned the NFT of the meme photo on Foundation. .

The sale was successful and Morris received 200 ETH, worth $411,000 at the time. This work was also collected by NFT collector 3FMusic.