Mechanism Capital co-founder and partner Andrew Kang sold 75% of his shares Harambe NFT to a newly formed DAO that intends to symbolize it.
Harambe was a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo who was killed by a zoo employee after a three-year-old boy entered the enclosure. Prior to his death, photographer Jeff McCurry took a photo of Harambe, which became a popular meme.
In May 2021, on the fifth anniversary of his death, McCurry sold seven photos of Harambe as one-for-one NFTs. In September, Kang purchased the collection’s first NFT and two months later announced his plans to fractionate it.
More than two years later, the initiative finally starts. Kang sold the 75% ownership of the NFT for $5 million and will receive 25% of the fractional tokens. The remaining tokens will be distributed in an airdrop to other meme tokens – TRUMP, PEPE, MOG and TOSHI – and will be used to provide liquidity on decentralized exchanges.
McCurry also supports the initiative. “$HARAMBE is being fractioned by my 1-of-1 NFT of Harambe’s most popular photo viewed over 25 billion times,” he says posted on X. “May the memory of Harambe live on forever.”
An NFT is fractionated by locking the original NFT in a vault and issuing tokens, each representing an equal portion of the NFT. While it is easy to fractionalize an NFT, it is much more difficult to undo it. This often involves a majority of token holders voting to convert it back into the NFT in exchange for a payout.
The DAO established to support the initiative is called the Harambe DAO. The tokens will be used for governance purposes within the DAO. The DAO said it has donated $25,000 to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
About the author
Tim is editor-in-chief of The Block. Before joining The Block, Tim was news editor at Decrypt. He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of York and studied news journalism at the Press Association Training. Follow him on X @Timccopeland.
