The Doge wins again:

That's right: the "Doge" has become the most expensive original digital item ever sold at an insane $4 million.

On Friday, the auction winner, @pleasrdao, placed a willing bid of 1,696.9 of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, worth approximately $4 million, according to the auction site Zora.

"We're so happy to be a part of this milestone in internet history. If any meme deserved to be the new meme NFT record holder, it's Doge," said Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of the internet meme database Know Your Meme, which certified Doge ahead of the auction to ensure that the meme was being sold by its rightful owner.

If you aren't familiar with NFTs, you're basically buying a unique blockchain: a digital code that says you own the original copy of whatever digital item was purchased, like the online version of owning an original painting.

How does one prove they own a meme? Well, in this case, the rights were sold by the actual owner of the famous dog:

The meme was first put up for auction on Tuesday by Atsuko Sato, the owner of Kabosu, the dog from the image, and ran for roughly three days before being sold to @pleasrdao.

While the rest of us might share the Doge millions of times per week, someone out there now has exclusive rights to the "original" meme.

Apparently, the runner up was "@twodollahotdoge", who is probably very sad today.

There's been no word from Elon Musk yet on this development, or if this will interfere with his plan to put Doge on the moon.