Elon Musk’s Reshared Meme Gets Sold as an NFT for Nearly $20,000
Though it was Beylin’s idea to create the meme, she was not the creator of the image of the cartoon couple nor the editor of the prices of bitcoin and ether.
By Shiela Bertillo
A reshared meme on Twitter of technology entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk, who’s notorious for his meme reposting with or without credits, has been minted and sold as a non fungible token (NFT) for almost $20,000 in just 2 days after its reposting.
The meme was named “Love in The Time of Web3,” by its creator Eva Beylin, 28, a self-proclaimed “hobby artist.” The meme features a cartoon couple admiring the prices of bitcoin and ether, which are $69,000 and $4,200, respectively. Although the price of bitcoin hasn’t hit $69,000, the numbers are significant to the meme culture.
Although Musk didn’t give her proper credits, Beylin still expressed how she was “over the moon.”
“The ultimate prize of memeology is for the ultimate meme lord to use your meme,” she added.
After the meme got attention following Musk’s reposting, Beylin listed it as an NFT that night on Zora, an NFT marketplace. Two days later, it sold for 5 Wrapped Ether (WETH), which is about $19,800 at current pricing, to an anonymous buyer.
“It is surreal,” Beylin said.
Though it was Beylin’s idea to create the meme, she was not the creator of the image of the cartoon couple nor the editor of the prices of bitcoin and ether. The inspiration of the meme was a post of another Twitter user who edited the cryptocurrency prices and tweeted it as a joke.
To compensate the user, @shegenerates, Beylin gave her 20% of the proceeds from the NFT sale. Shegenerates said that she doesn’t mind Beylin using her edit.
“Personally, I have [Musk] blocked on Twitter, so I only saw it after Eva [Beylin] posted about him sharing it. I wish I got all those likes myself because I can only imagine how much serotonin my brain would make with all that attention, but memes are permissionless, so it’s just cool to see things I shared around,” Shegenerates says.
On the other hand, the creator of the cartoon couple is unknown to Beylin and following the legal gray area that NFTs exist in, it’s not clear whether the use of this image infringes on any potential copyright laws.
Moreover, with her cut on the sale, Beylin plans to reinvest in other artists by buying their NFTs.
“As a hobby artist, I’d never be able to reinvest in art or have my art paid for [without NFTs]. So, my thing has always been reinvesting back into NFTs,” she stated.
Further, the anonymous buyer of “Love in The Time of Web3” has already relisted the meme for 69.42 wrapped ether (about $275,000 currently). Currently, although a lot less than the asking price, a bidder already offered 6.94 wrapped ether (about $27,500) for the meme.
Beylin said that she will earn a 15% royalty if the meme resells.
Source: CNBC
This article is published on BitPinas: Elon Musk’s Reshared Meme Gets Sold as an NFT for Nearly $20,000 in 2 Days
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