Last Monday, a chain photo of a puppy wearing a knitted hat sold for just over $4.3 million.
While such a statement may sound absurd – and it may not make a huge difference – the dog in the photo was not a random dog, but Achi: the Shiba Inu from the iconic Dogwifhat internet meme.
At over $4.3 million, the Achi NFT became the most expensive meme NFT ever sold. But it was certainly not the first. For years, the healthy overlap of internet and crypto cultures has led to NFT incarnations of some of the most famous memes of all time.
Here’s a look at the most expensive meme-inspired NFTs ever purchased.
1) Dogwifhat: $4.3 million
The Dogwifhat meme (cropped). Image: Foundation
Huge this week Dog hat NFT sale– who clocked in at 1,210,759 ETH, worth $4,311,234 at time of purchase—owes much of its success to the popularity of the original Dogwifhat meme, which appeared online in late 2019. But most of all, the piece likely fetched such a high-profile price because of the overwhelming success of WIF, a Solana meme coin-inspired meme that has exploded in value in recent months.
Since its founding in December, WIF has done just that shot up in value. Last week, the token reached a record $3 billion market cap, shortly after several members of the WIF community raised their money almost $700,000 to plaster the face of Achi – the dog from the meme – on Sphere, the huge LED screen-covered arena in Las Vegas.
The NFT photo was auctioned off by Achi’s South Korean owners, who made about $4.1 million from the sale after fees — far more than they ever expected to make from the photo of their puppy they shared in 2018 had taken in passing, auction coordinator Path told Declutter. The photo has been sold to GCR, a prominent pseudonym crypto tradervia an auction on the digital art platform Foundation.
2) Doge: $4.2 million
Kabosu, the meme mascot of Dogecoin. Image: Very.Auction
Before last week, the record for the most expensive meme-related NFT of all time was held by the godfather of all dog-related memes: the original Doge.
That sale made waves in the heyday of the NFT boom, on June 11, 2021 – when an NFT of the original photo that inspired the Doge meme, taken by Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato of her Shiba Inu Kabosu, sold for millions of dollars (a first at the time).
The NFT ultimately sold for a larger amount of ETH than the Dogwifhat NFT: 1,696.9 ETH. However, due to Ethereum’s lower price at the time, that amount was approximately $4.234 million. The Doge meme was not only an integral part of internet culture at the time; it was also fundamental to crypto, because it inspired Dogecointhe very first meme coin.
“Doge is perhaps one of the most important memes of internet culture,” said Santiago Santos, member of investment collective PleasrDAO, which bought the Doge NFT, told Declutter at the time.
PleasrDAO then proceeded to split the Doge NFT into billions fractionated tokensa move that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in value and has since become a entire ecosystem from Doge-loving crypto users.
3) Pepe the Frog: $3.5 million
On October 5, 2021, the original Pepe the Frog Genesis NFT was released, created by Matt Furie, the artist behind the internet-famous green amphibian that was at one point co-opted by the alt right–sold for a whopping 1,000 ETH, worth approximately $3.5 million at the time of sale.
Of course, Pepe doesn’t just have cachet in general internet circles; the meme has long been deeply intertwined with crypto culture and was only inspired last year Pepecoinan Ethereum meme coin that has seen great success.
The Pepe NFT represents the file of the very first comic panel drawn by Furie featuring the character, created in November 2006. It was sold to Starry Night Capital, an NFT fund founded by crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and a pseudonymous investor Vincent Van Deeg in 2021.
When three arrows collapsed in 2022, the trustee behind the company’s bankruptcy proceedings seized NFTs in his possession and began they sell repay creditors. Just this week, as part of that liquidation process, Sotheby’s brokered the sale of the Pepe NFT to a crypto manager. Andreas Kang for an unknown amount.
4) Charlie bit my finger: $760,999
One of YouTube’s most iconic videos, Charlie Bit My Finger, made the jump to the chain during the NFT craze of 2021. Why? Seeing the success of other meme NFT sales, the parents of the titular, then-teething Charlie and his older brother hoped to parlay their viral moment into funds that could cover both boys’ expenses. tuition fees.
The gamble worked quite effectively: on May 22, 2021, an NFT of the video was sold to Dubai-based collector 3FMusic for $760,999. Initially, the family of the viral video planned to pull the video from YouTube after the sale to increase the significance of the NFT. 3FMusic Reportedly said they didn’t care if the video stayed online, so it remains on YouTube to this day.
5) Nyan Cat: $590,000
Nyan Cat, a pixelated animation of a cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso, first took the internet by storm in 2011. Ten years later, the image’s creator, artist Chris Torres, thought he would sell the animation as an NFT. The piece would generate far more interest than many expected, effectively kicking off the concept of meme NFTs as an asset class.
On February 19, 2021 – just before NFTs became more widespread cultural awareness—Torres sold the Nyan Cat NFT for 300 ETH, worth about $590,000 at the time, to an anonymous crypto user.
In the months that followed, countless other creators of famous memes followed Torres’ lead and began auctioning off their own iconic images as NFTs, finally allowing them to meaningfully profit from and own the pieces of internet history they created.
“It kind of became a trend, not just for me, but for a lot of meme artists who have created since then. It’s always been kind of a struggle,” Torres said told Declutter in 2021.
6) Disaster Girl: $430,000
One of the first legendary meme makers to follow Torres’ example was Zoe Roth, who as a toddler posed in front of a burning building with a subtle grin that has since become internet shorthand for delighting in chaos. The meme, called Disaster Girl, was a foundational meme of the 2000s.
A disaster girl. Image: Zoë Roth
In mid-2021, Roth auctioned an NFT of the original photo from the meme on Foundation. It’s April 17th sold for 180 ETH, worth about $430,000 at the time. The piece ended up at 3FMusic, the NFT collector who now owns several NFTs on this list.
7) Overly attached girlfriend: $411,000
Spring 2021 was the heyday for meme NFT auctions; in fact, every piece on this list except the reigning champion (Dogwifhat) sold in 2021, in the months following Nyan Cat’s groundbreaking sale.
Just weeks after that NFT auction, Laina Morris — the creator of the content immortalized in a 2012 meme as “Overly Attached Girlfriend” — took the plunge into blockchain technology herself, auctioning off an NFT of the meme’s photo on Foundation.
The sale went well, with Morris settlement of 200 ETH, worth $411,000 at the time, for the digital token. The piece went to NFT collector 3FMusic.
Edited by Andrew Hayward