The original “I can Cheezburger?” meme has become the latest popular culture icon to be immortalized as the NFT.
The meme creator Eric Nakagawa announced his foray into a number of Lolcat NFTs on February 23. “Happy Cat” – the crown jewel of Nakgawa’s NFT release – will be auctioned on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. The highest bid is currently 0.25 ETH.
It’s cool to see how the most important internet story becomes NFT: https://t.co/EclycEXupY
– Micah Baldwin (@micah) February 22, 2021
The 10-part series, titled “No Fries Today,” includes early Lolcat memes and meme-inspired artwork. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to nonprofit organizations including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Internet Archives, and the World Wildlife Foundation.
Each NFT includes the backstory that explains how the meme it represents was originally created. Nakagawa stated that he exhumed image files from his “old personal archive” for the series.
While Nakagawa tells Cointelegraph that he “definitely jumped the gun on Happy Cat,” he says he has a few other collections to be released.
What if NFT but Lolcats? https://t.co/56T1H8voT3
– Eric Nakagawa (@ericnakagawa) February 24, 2021
NFTs were at risk in 2021, making $ 60 million daily in revenue on Feb.23. Many popular tokens were inspired by well-known memes.
An NFT version of “Nyan Cat” – the heavily memorized video of a flying cat shaped like a toaster – sold for nearly $ 580,000 on the Foundation Marketplace app on Feb.21.
In January, American collector giant Topps released a series of cartoons based on a memorable image of Bernie Sanders that sold 8,876 packs of NFT cards over a three-day sale.
Nakagawa is no stranger to cryptocurrency and currently works as the head of open source in the blockchain division of Novi Financial – the Facebook subsidiary that oversees the development of its Diem crypto asset project.
After co-founding the popular picture sharing website icanhascheezburger.com in 2007, he briefly moved to Ripple Labs as Director of Growth in 2013, before taking up a position as a startup outreach at the Dogecoin Foundation the following year.
While working with Dogecoin, Nakagawa organized doge4water, a fundraiser that raised 40 million DOGE for a Kenya-based charity – valued at $ 33,000 at the time.
