- The price of Unisocks tokens has reached an all-time high of over $92,000.
- Issued by Uniswap in 2019, SOCKS tokens are backed by physical, limited-edition pairs of socks.
- So far, 185 users have already redeemed their tokens for the meme footwear.
The price of Unisocks (SOCKS) has reached a new all-time high of over $92,000. These digital socks are “memeful” crypto tokens issued by decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI).
What can owning one get you? Well, a physical pair of socks. And that’s it.
“500 pairs of digital socks have a market cap of $20 million. Memes are the new money,” tweeted Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at Coinshares, on Tuesday.
500 pairs of digital socks have a market cap of $20 million
memes are the new money https://t.co/gJ5MmtaZrE
— Meltem Demirors (@Melt_Dem) February 15, 2021
At press time, SOCKS are trading at around $64,600, down 24.6% on the day, according to crypto metrics platform CoinGecko.
How did this all start?
In 2019, Uniswap created 500 SOCKS tokens. The original idea was that they are “backed” by the same amount of physical, limited-edition pairs of socks. But they also came with a unique price scale.
The very first SOCKS token was listed for $12, but the price of each subsequent sale has been increasing according to a dynamic curve since then. This has led to the current, absurd price high.
The day is finally here – Unisocks redemption is live!!!Visit https://t.co/fJv6jrrVLd to redeem your $SOCKS for luxury socks shipped anywhere in the world.
— Uniswap Protocol (@Uniswap) October 22, 2019
Notably, the surge coincided with Uniswap itself becoming the first DeFi trading platform to generate over $100 billion in volume.
“Uniswap just became the first decentralized trading platform to process over $100b in volume – an exciting milestone for DeFi,” Uniswap’s founder Hayden Adams tweeted on February 16.
@Uniswap just became the first decentralized trading platform to process over $100b in volume – an exciting milestone for DeFi pic.twitter.com/hUoM36aG6A
— Hayden Adams (@haydenzadams) February 15, 2021
To turn their tokens into socks, Unisock holders must redeem their tokens, taking them out of circulation. According to Unisocks’ website, there are currently only 315 SOCKS tokens left out of 500 in circulation, so 185 crypto enthusiasts have already redeemed their pretty expensive footwear.
As Decrypt reported, Ethereum-based, non-fungible tokens CryptoPunks are also selling for outrageous sums of money, with the latest pixelated picture of a male “punk” being auctioned off for 78 ETH (roughly $150,000).
And it wasn’t even backed by a real, physical punk’s head.