Doge, the famous meme of a Japanese Shiba Inu who became the image of the Dogecoin, broke another record as it was sold as an NFT (non-fungible token) for $ 4 million. The price reached at the auction ranks it as the most expensive NFT meme in history.
On Tuesday, Atsuko Sato, owner of the viral dog, put the meme turned NFT up for sale. Over the next three days, several users made interesting offers. The final battle for “Doge” ownership took place between a netizen identified as @twodollahotdoge and another named @pleasrdao, who raised the price considerably.
Finally, on Friday afternoon, user @pleasrdao took possession of the precious digital asset, offering 1.696,9 Ethereum, which is roughly equivalent to $ 4 million, according to the current quotation.
Doge's story
Doge has its origin in the Homestar Runner series. In a 2005 episode, the central character calls another of the characters his "Doge".
In 2010, Sato shared an image of her dog Kabosu on her personal blog, with her legs crossed and a friendly expression on her face. At the time, he had no idea that his pet would go viral and become one of the most popular memes on the internet.
“I took the photos to update my blog,” he said in a statement. "I take a lot of photos every day, so that day was nothing extraordinary."
In the following years, Kabosu's photo invaded multiple social networks and was replicated on various platforms such as Tumblr. One day, a Reddit user called her "Doge" and netizens adopted her by that name. Soon thousands of memes surfaced with the image of the puppy surrounded by all kinds of phrases.
“When I first discovered Kabosu memes, I was very surprised. I was terrified that only a photo I had randomly posted on my blog could spread around the world in places I didn't know, ”says Sato.
From pet to crypto icon
Doge reached a new level of popularity when a group of internet users took inspiration to create Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Despite its low price and capitalization, the DOGE digital currency is among the most popular in the world. This is partly due to Tesla CEO Elon Musk having expressed his preference for the Dogecion multiple times.
Now that the Doge meme is an NFT and in the hands of another owner, can they continue to use it as a Dogecoin image? Will the new owner be able to claim royalties on the cryptocurrency? Only time will tell.
And what do you think of this purchase? Is 4 million dollars enough for a modern-day icon or is it too much? Write us in the comments.
