"Disaster Girl" Sells Mom for $ 500,000 as NFT | Gadget theory

In 2005, a photo of a young girl standing in front of a burning house began circulating on the Internet. The four-year-old, Zoë Roth, stands with an apparent smile on her face, which many thought was quite entertaining considering the circumstances behind her. The image became a meme, and provided a perfect image for anyone who wanted to convey a mischievous or disastrous event in a funny way.

Original Disaster Girl Meme

Roth explains that in January 2005, her father Dave took her to see a controlled fire, which is a fire that started intentionally cleaning a house near Mebane, North Carolina. Dave, an amateur photographer, decided to snap this photo with Roth and her mischievous smile.

The photo won a photography award in 2008, and once posted online, it quickly gained traction and became a viral hit.

Roth, now in her 20s, filed the image as a non-fungal token (NFT), which is a digital property certificate. She sold the original copy of the meme for 180 Ethereum, which is a type of cryptocurrency, to an NFT collector named @ 3FMusic.

An NFT is a digital token that is unique and is encrypted with an artist’s signature. This is permanently attached to the item and verifies its ownership and authenticity. This allows popular online content in its original version (such as tweets and memes) to be sold, just as physical artifacts are.

Zoë Roth Today

The Roths have ensured that the NFT is marked with a code that allows them to retain the copyright and also receive 10% of the profits from any future sale of the meme.

Roth said she had enjoyed seeing her image in the mother and the many variations over the years. She told the New York Times: “You just make it fit the way you want it to. I love to see it, because I would never make one myself, but I love to see how creative people are.”

Sales for digital art ownership have recently exploded, with multi-million dollar sales already taking place.

For example, a 2011 meme from Nyan Cat, the flying popcorn cat, was sold in February 2021 for more than $ 500,000.

Nyan Cat Meme

Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, cited the rights to the first-ever posted tweet, with bids reaching up to $ 2.5 million.

Roth said she would donate a portion of the proceeds to charity and also help pay off her student loans.

She told the New York Times: “People who are in memes and go viral is one thing, but just the way the internet has captured my photo and kept it viral, kept relevant, is so crazy to me. I’m super grateful for the whole experience. . ”