Dogwifhat original pink beanie sells to memecoin launchpad founder for $800K — far less than $4.3M iconic photo NFT sale

The physical knitted beanie associated with the iconic photo of Achi, the Shiba Inu dog behind the Dogwifhat memecoin, sold via auction on Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace Ord City for 6.8 BTC ($794,074) on Thursday night.

The winning bid came from "Finn," the pseudonymous founder of Solana memecoin launchpad Bags, on behalf of the platform, beating strong competition from two other bidders in particular during the 48-hour event.

The auction had to be paused at one point during the proceedings after a slew of fake bids were submitted, including one for an impossible amount of bitcoin, equivalent to the total 21 million BTC supply.

Bags' model enables token deployers to share trading fees with users on X.

The token has gained more than 700% over the past 24 hours, rising to a market cap of $7.8 million, according to DEX Screener.

The Dogwifhat meme became popular on platforms like Reddit and Twitter in 2020, inspiring the Solana-based WIF cryptocurrency of the same name in late 2023. The pink hat, originally handcrafted as a Christmas decoration, was first photographed on Achi in November 2018, and the image went viral when uploaded to Instagram. To verify the authenticity of the hat, Ord City provided high-resolution photos and a video detailing the meme's origin and the hat's provenance from Achi's owners.

Iconic Dogwifhat photo's $4.3 million NFT sale

Though substantial, the winning bid for the knitted hat falls far short of the amount the owners raised from the sale of the Dogwifhat meme's original iconic photo as an NFT.

Following a three-day auction on NFT marketplace Foundation in March 2024, crypto trader Gigantic Rebirth Ventures ultimately made the winning bid of 1,210.8 ETH, worth around $4.3 million at the time and $4.7 million at current prices.

Dogwifhat is currently trading at $0.92, according to The Block's WIF price page, up 3.2% over the past 24 hours. Following a collapse in memecoin hype, the token is down over 70% since peaking around the time of the NFT sale, though it still commands a market cap of nearly $1 billion.