GM

TLDR on our main story today:

I'm hosting an auction for this famous cat meme today and then livestreaming the finale on Monday

bc that's what the internet is all about

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

A rare classic meme suddenly appears

It's amazing that less than 1% of internet culture has moved onchain.

Despite all the money being thrown around in memecoins and NFTs, almost every video/image that has ever gone viral remains offchain in web2.

I have full conviction that we'll see a big migration in the coming years as crypto-natives feel more wealthy/comfortable buying these objects and as creators realize the opportunities in front of them.

Soon it'll be natural for every big content creator to mint their work.

But what about those objects that were a huge part of the culture before this phase kicked in?

We'll likely have two eras: one where online culture wasn't "ownable", and then suddenly, one where it was.

I've thought about this recently with "classic memes" — aka pieces of content that explode in popularity and organically lead to offshoots that refer back to them (you know one when you see one).

You might think there's an infinite number of these, but that's not really true

When you start filtering for memes that:

1. have survived a multi-year attention cycle

2. don't depend on copyrighted work (like spongebob memes)

3. and enough collectors would find valuable 

You'll see that the list is short, maybe hundreds at most. In other words, smaller than your average PFP community.

And only a handful join this list each year.

Then combine this with the fact that many of these are being lost to time — their creators unreachable, their origins unverifiable. This is true for memes, webcomics, classic youtube videos, vines, etc. And opportunities are permanently closing for some of these day by day.

So it's special when one makes it onchain with verified provenance and becomes "immortalized". 

Later I'll write more about the buyer perspective and why I think a small group of smart collectors have been scooping these up before everyone realizes how rare they are.

For now, I'm excited about a series of these objects that I'll be bringing to auction over the coming weeks, starting with today's Vibing Cat auction at 1 PM ET.

You've likely seen this one: a video of a white cat bobbing her head to music. The original creator Mick Lagi posted this on TikTok in 2020 and it quickly blew up across Twitch and other platforms with millions of views. 

It reminds me of those years after 2020 when we all went online a little more than before, and it seemed like this cat was everywhere then. 

Even more amazing is that Mick wasn't really a traditional creator shooting for virality, it just happened out of nowhere.

This will be a 72-hour auction that ends with a finale livestream on my X profile on Monday.

It’ll be fun to watch even if you don’t bid, see you there. 

Kanoi

• Mint Date: TBD

• Supply: TBD

• Price: TBD

• Chain: Ethereum (Base)

• Link

Multiple trading card games hit my desk every quarter, each one with its own homebrewed blend of Magic, Yugioh and Hearthstone mechanics that mostly end up feeling like a downgrade from its original inspiration.

Today’s feature, Kanoi, is a TCG with very little gameplay details revealed so far, so I don’t know if it’ll be different, but its background is more interesting than most.

The game is inspired by Japanese Yokai (supernatural spirits), and it has players engage in turn-based battles that feature play-to-earn mechanics with NFT cards and a $KANOI ERC-20 token (more in their whitepaper).

Japan-based gmlabs, founded in 2022 by Takeshi Kuroda (former e-commerce strategy manager at The Pokémon Company), is developing the game and has secured 600k USD from various Asia-based VCs (one of them here), which is in the usual range for indie game development.

You can see some of gmlabs’s dev work in their first release, the oshimo mobile app, a 3D game where you obsequiously interact with a miniature version of your favorite idol (I’m not Japanese enough for this).

There are still a lot of question marks here, but there’s enough for me to keep tabs on it.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

HolyMath by ORKHAN

• Mint Date: July 10

• Supply: 100

• Price: 0.02 - 0.03 BTC

• Chain: Bitcoin

• Link

Media artist Orkhan Mammadov, known for Middle Eastern-inspired generative works, will soon be debuting on Ordinals with this exclusive collection.

Drawing inspiration from the work of ancient Persian mathematicians, Orkhan has created intricate geometrical works featuring colorful tessellations reminiscent of one’s visit to a Persian rug store… or perhaps a resplendent yet unrelenting LSD trip.

It’s a genuinely exclusive sale, available only upon request (registration period ending today) with no public mint.

I’m more of a fan of open mints, but I could see BTC collectors enjoying this work, as the artist has had success with similar styles in the past.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨