A knitted hat associated with the popular meme coin Dogwifhat sold for $792,696 on Thursday night.
The highest bidder was the founder and CEO of rising meme coin launchpad Bags, simply known as Finn, who said he wanted to give the hat “back to the community.” The auction for the physical hat took place on Bitcoin ordinal platform Ordcity. Finn was battling alongside two other bidders, named Gr3g and X:md96178 in the auction. At one point, the platform had to pause and relaunch the bidding war as they “massively underestimated your degeneracy” after someone bid the entire supply of Bitcoin—which is obviously not possible. Finally, once the platform had sorted out the abusers, Finn won the auction with a 6.8 BTC bid, approximately $792,696.
What next for the hat?
Finn is the founder and CEO of Bags, a new token launchpad which allows token deployers to share trading fees with a user on X. It has led to a wave of original artists, such as the creators of the vintage memes Trollface and Nyan Cat, being paid for meme coins of their art—although the artists do not necessarily support the projects. The founder claims that he bought the hat using fees associated with a token from Bags, called Buy the Hat, plus some of his own money. He said that he’s doing it to “make sure the hat goes back to the community in some way.”
Later he said that he can “update the metadata” of the token once after he wins the auction, possibly hinting at the Buy the Hat token morphing into some sort of sequel to Dogwifhat. Once his bid was successful, he added the hat to the Bags logo, teasing “get ready for what’s coming next.” Buy the Hat surged 292% from a market cap of $1.62 million to $6.37 million over 10 hours, as traders anticipate what the hat purchase could possibly mean. It subsequently retraced 25% to $4.76 million on Friday morning, according to DEX Screener.
What is Dogwifhat (WIF)?
Dogwifhat (WIF) was one of the most popular Solana meme coins of last year, hitting a peak market cap of $4.58 billion in March 2024. The high came amid a campaign to advertise the token on the Las Vegas Sphere, for which its community raised $700,000—but the plan ultimately fell apart a year later. WIF is now at a $954 million market cap, according to DEX Screener, up 5% on the day. The meme is simply that it is a cute dog wearing a knitted pink hat, prompting its supporters to say “the hat stays on” in a sign of support for the token. Its success has also spawned countless “wif hat” related meme coins—including Catwifhat, Bidenwifhat, and more.
Where did the hat come from?
The hat itself was hand-knitted by the owner of adorable Shiba Inu pup Achi while living in South Korea, with the iconic photo snapped two months after Achi’s birth in 2018. Her owners initially reacted positively to their dog’s newfound fame, announcing an NFT auction of the original photo of Achi. However, the auction was set to take place on Ethereum which peeved the pup’s Solana-centric meme coin fanbase. It came after Achi’s owners were put off Solana after being misled by a meme coin developer who launched an ACHI token for them—before rug pulling it.
On March 18, the photo of Achi sold for 1,210.759 ETH (around $4.27 million at the time). Now, more than a year later, the owners returned to sell the physical hat to the highest bidder. “This hat has been a lucky charm for us and a piece of internet culture that has traveled across chains, timelines, and communities, carrying our story along the way,” the owners wrote in a post, congratulating Finn on his win. “It has sparked conversations, inspired memes and connected people who share the same love for the dog wif hat. We hope it brings you and everyone around you the same luck, fun, and serendipity it brought us.”