While meme-oriented NFTs largely had their heyday a few years ago

While meme-oriented NFTs largely had their heyday a few years ago when they were selling for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars seemingly every week

Meme-oriented NFTs may have largely had their heyday a few years ago when they were being sold for several hundred thousand dollars or even millions every week, but the crypto art space is still active today, especially amid the recent meme coin craze that's seen tons of "degens" getting into cryptocurrency for the first time and making headlines around the world thanks to high-profile events like President Donald Trump's coin or the Hawk Tuah girl's token.

Most of these meme coins garnering virality over the last several months are created on the Solana blockchain and minted on sites like Pump.fun. But while Dogecoin may be widely considered the first true "meme coin" to enter the scene over a decade ago, the first-ever Solana-based meme coin is known as "$STNK" — inspired by the iconic "Stonks" meme that became a staple on the internet eight years ago.

Taking it back to early June 2017, the first-ever instance of the so-called "Meme Man" appeared on the Facebook page Special Meme Fresh, which combined the character with a stock photo and the caption "Stonks," ultimately giving life to what would quickly become known as the "Stonks" meme.

From there, the simple image macro spread across the web as it was edited into countless memes and variations in the following months and years, eventually becoming one of the most recognizable memes of the last decade that's still commonly used to this day.

Jumping back to the present, the original creator of the Stonks meme himself has recently sold the official NFT to the community behind the Stonks-based meme coin, $STNK, which has now been certified by us at Know Your Meme.

This marks one of many meme NFTs and IPs authenticated by Know Your Meme to ensure that it's legitimate and officially from the true creator behind the meme. Back in 2021, we discovered that May Oswald, who created the original Me Gusta Rage Comic character, had her artwork stolen and uploaded to an NFT marketplace by an impersonator attempting to capitalize on her creation. By authenticating NFTs like this one, we can ensure that the true creators are the people behind these kinds of sales.

In a recent exchange with the Stonks coin community, they told us that it was important to them that they acquire the NFT to strengthen their provenance and bolster the token’s fundamentals. Additionally, they also sought to pay tribute and support the meme's originator.

"We also believe supporting original artists of memes is important. It has become commonplace for projects to disregard the initial artist and steal their work, which is a worrying trend. We hope that we help set a trend and that more memecoins take the same approach we have."

Originally deployed back on April 2nd, 2021, as the first-ever meme coin on the Solana blockchain, anyone curious to learn more about the community behind the Stonks token or the cryptocurrency itself can check out their website here for more info, as well as follow them on X / Twitter @STONKS_SOL to see what they're up to lately.