The meme “I Can Has Cheezburger?” has become the latest symbol of popular culture to be immortalized as an NFT.
It has been reported that the meme’s creator, Eric Nakagawa, announced his foray into a series of lolcat NFTs on February 23. “Happy Cat,” the crown jewel of Nakgawa’s NFT release, is being auctioned on NFT marketplace OpenSea, with the highest bid currently sitting at 0.25 ETH.
Cool to see all the most important internet history becoming NFTs https://t.co/EclycEXupY — Micah Baldwin (@micah) February 22, 2021
However, the 10 piece series, titled “No Fries Today,” comprises early lolcat memes and meme-inspired artwork. Some proceeds of the sales will be donated to charitable organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Internet Archive, and the World Wildlife Foundation.
The report said that each NFT includes the back-story explaining how the meme it represents was originally created, with Nakagawa stating he exhumed image files from his “ancient personal archive” for the series.
Nakagawa said he has a couple of other collections rearing to be released, while he said that he “definitely jumped the gun on Happy Cat.”
What if NFT but lolcats? https://t.co/56T1H8voT3 — Eric Nakagawa 🧀🍔 (@ericnakagawa) February 24, 2021
Likewise, NFTs have been on a tear during 2021, pulling $60 million in daily sales on February 23, with many popular tokens drawing inspiration from well-known memes. An NFT version of “Nyan Cat” — the heavily memed video of a flying toaster-shaped feline, sold on February 21 for nearly $580,000, on the Foundation marketplace app.
As per the sources, Nakagawa is no stranger to cryptocurrency, as currently, he is working as the head of Open Source in the Blockchain department of Novi Financial, the Facebook subsidiary overseeing the development of its crypto-asset project, Diem. After co-founding the popular picture-sharing website icanhascheezburger.com in 2007, he briefly joined Ripple Labs as Director of Growth in 2013, before taking a position as Startup Outreach at the Dogecoin Foundation the following year.
Meme master and head of open-source blockchain development at Novi Financial, Eric Nakagawa, also known as ‘Cheezburger,’ has entered the world of NFTs. https://t.co/2VI9jpDYK2 — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) February 25, 2021
Thus, while working with Dogecoin, Nakagawa organized “doge4water,” a fundraiser that collected 40 million DOGE for a Kenya-based charity — worth $33,000 at the time.
Source: Cointelegraph