Iconic Doge Meme, Helped By Dogecoin Popularity, Sells For Record $4M As NFT

Doge, the classic meme behind the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE), has sold as a nun-fungible token (NFT) for about $4 million in an auction.

What Happened: @pleasrdao emerged as the auction winner after placing the highest bid of 1,696.9 of the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH), worth about $4.06 million, auction site Zora announced on Twitter. This makes Doge the most expensive meme to be sold as NFT so far, as per Zora.

Congratulations to @PleasrDAO for winning the original #Doge NFT auction!

Won at 1.696.9 ETH ($4.06 million)�

Today, you made history for us at Zora & @kabosumama by buying the most expensive meme of all time pic.twitter.com/nKa0fNPH3K

— ZORA ☼☽ (@ourZORA) June 11, 2021

See also: How To Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)

The meme was put up for auction by Japanese nursery teacher Atsuko Sato, the owner of Kabosu, the female Shiba Inu that featured in the original meme.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the NFT will go toward several charities, including the Japanese Red Cross Society and the World Food Programme, according to a report by CNBC.

See Also: Shiba Inu Outperforms Dogecoin As Meme Coins See Rekindled Social Media Interest

Why It Matters: Doge is an Internet meme that became popular in 2013. The meme, based on a 2010 photograph of Kabosu, consists of a picture of a Shiba Inu dog accompanied by multicolored text in Comic Sans font in the foreground.

Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency based on Doge and created mainly as a joke in 2013, has shot to prominence this year, in major part due to endorsement from Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk.

Some NFT artworks have recorded sky-high valuations lately, with Beeple’s ‘The First 5000 Days’ NFT based digital artwork being sold for $69 million in an auction in March. It was reported in April that another popular meme, “Disaster Girl”, sold for nearly $500,000 at an auction.  

Price Action: Dogecoin is almost 4% higher during the past 24 hours and is trading at $0.3236 at press time.

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