By 2021, people were selling Kabosu's photo as NFTs, one-of-a-kind digital artworks, while pretending to be Sato. It scared her.
She decided Kabosu's picture should be used "for someone's happiness, not for someone's money-making." So she put the original photo up for sale herself.
In June 2021, after a three-day auction, a crypto group called PleasrDAO bought it for 1,696.9 in the cryptocurrency Ether, about $4 million. At the time, no meme NFT had ever sold for more.
Now Sato had to decide what to do with the money. "I was under a lot of pressure," she wrote. "I spent several months making my decision."