Last Monday, a photo of a dog wearing a knitted hat was sold for just over $4.3 million on the blockchain. While this may sound unbelievable, it’s not just any dog in the photo (although it may not look much different), it’s Achi: the Shiba Inu, the iconic meme “Dogwifhat” from the internet. The price of over $4.3 million also makes this Achi NFT the most expensive meme NFT in history. However, this is not the first high-priced meme NFT. Over the years, the intersection of the internet and crypto culture has led to a series of well-known meme NFTs.
Here is a list of the highest-priced meme NFTs in history:
Dogwifhat: $4.3 million
Last week, the Dogwifhat NFT was sold for 1,210.759 ETH, equivalent to $4,311,234 at the time of the transaction. The popularity of the original Dogwifhat meme on the internet since the end of 2019 played a significant role in the high price of this artwork. However, the success of the meme coin WIF on Solana may have also contributed to the staggering price. In the past few months, the value of WIF, inspired by Dogwifhat, has skyrocketed.
Since its creation in December of last year, the price of WIF has been soaring, and its market value surpassed $3 billion last week. Not long ago, several members of the WIF community raised nearly $700,000 to display Achi’s face on a giant LED screen outside the Las Vegas Sphere.
According to the auctioneer Path, the NFT photo was randomly taken by Achi’s Korean owner in 2018. After deducting fees, the auction will net approximately $4.1 million, far exceeding expectations. The famous anonymous cryptocurrency trader GCR acquired this photo through the digital art platform Foundation’s auction.
Doge: $4.2 million
Until last week, the record for the most expensive meme NFT was held by the pioneer of all dog memes, Doge. This transaction took place on June 11, 2021, during the peak of the NFT craze, and it created a sensation by fetching millions of dollars for the first time. The original image was a photo of Kabosu, a Shiba Inu owned by Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato. This photo also served as the inspiration for the Doge meme.
The NFT was eventually sold for a price higher than the Dogwifhat NFT: 1696.9 ETH. However, due to the lower price of ETH at that time, it was approximately equivalent to $4.234 million. The Doge meme not only became an integral part of internet culture at the time but also laid the foundation for the crypto world as it inspired the creation of the first meme coin, Dogecoin.
“Doge is probably one of the most important memes in internet culture,” said Santiago Santos, a member of PleasrDAO, the collective of investors who purchased the Doge NFT. Subsequently, PleasrDAO split the Doge NFT into billions of fractionalized tokens, creating billions of dollars in value and driving a complete ecosystem of crypto users who love Doge.
Pepe the Frog: $3.5 million
On October 5, 2021, the original Pepe the Frog Genesis NFT created by Matt Furie was sold for an astonishing 1000 ETH, equivalent to approximately $3.5 million at the time. This green amphibian, which became popular on the internet, was once exploited by the far-right.
Pepe is not only revered in general internet circles but has also been closely intertwined with crypto culture for a long time. Last year, it inspired the successful meme coin Pepecoin on Ethereum.
The Pepe NFT represents the first multi-pane comic file depicting the character, drawn by Furie in November 2006. The buyer was Starry Night Capital, an NFT fund formed in 2021 by crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and anonymous investor Vincent Van Dough.
In 2022, as part of the liquidation process after Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt, the liquidators seized the NFTs held by the company and began selling them to repay debts. As part of the liquidation, the Pepe NFT was sold with the assistance of Sotheby’s this week to Andrew Kang, an executive in the crypto industry. The transaction amount was not disclosed.
Charlie Bit My Finger: $761,000
During the NFT craze in 2021, one of YouTube’s early iconic videos, “Charlie Bit My Finger,” also made its way onto the blockchain. The parents of Charlie and his brother, who were featured in the viral video, saw the success of other meme NFTs and hoped to turn their children’s moment of fame into funding for their college tuition.
This strategy proved to be quite effective. On May 22, 2021, the NFT of the video was sold for $760,999 to Dubai-based collector 3FMusic. Initially, the family planned to remove the video from YouTube after the sale to increase the significance of the NFT. However, it was reported that 3FMusic didn’t mind whether the video was taken down, so it remains on YouTube to this day.
Nyan Cat: $590,000
Nyan Cat is a pixelated animation of a cat that became popular on the internet in 2011. The cat’s body resembles a Pop-Tart. Ten years later, its creator, artist Chris Torres, considered selling the animation as an NFT. The interest sparked by this NFT far exceeded expectations and essentially established meme NFTs as a new asset class.
On February 19, 2021, before the cultural impact of NFTs had fully exploded, Torres sold the Nyan Cat NFT for 300 ETH, equivalent to $590,000 at the time, to an anonymous crypto user. In the following months, many other famous meme creators followed Torres’ lead and began auctioning their iconic images as NFTs. This allowed them to finally gain meaningful returns and establish ownership over their creations in internet history.
“It became a trend for me and many meme artists who have been working on various creations since then. Before that, everyone was struggling,” Torres said in 2021.
Disaster Girl: $430,000
Zoe Roth is one of the legendary meme creators who followed in Torres’ footsteps. As a child, she was photographed in front of a burning building with a mischievous smile on her face, and this meme, known as Disaster Girl, later became an expression of “schadenfreude” on the internet. This meme is one of the foundational memes of the early 21st century.
In mid-2021, Roth auctioned the original photo’s NFT on the Foundation platform. On April 17, 2021, the NFT was sold for 180 ETH, equivalent to approximately $430,000 at the time. This artwork ended up in the hands of 3FMusic, who currently holds multiple NFTs on this list.
Overly Attached Girlfriend: $411,000
The spring of 2021 was the peak period for meme NFT auctions. Apart from the champion (Dogwifhat), every work on this list was sold in 2021, just a few months after the groundbreaking sale of Nyan Cat.
Laina Morris, who was permanently immortalized as “Overly Attached Girlfriend” in a meme in 2012, started exploring blockchain technology shortly after the Nyan Cat auction. She auctioned off the NFT of the meme photo on Foundation.
The sale was a success, with Morris receiving 200 ETH, equivalent to $411,000 at the time. The artwork was also acquired by NFT collector 3FMusic.
