Indonesian NFT ‘selfie guy’ makes $1.8M in memecoin comeback

The Indonesian college student who earned a million dollars selling nonfungible tokens (NFTs) of his selfies in 2022 has made a comeback, raising $1.8 million in a memecoin presale.

In January 2022, Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali minted NFTs with photos of himself that he took every day for five years. The collection, called “Ghozali Everyday,” gained support from crypto community members, netting Ghozali, who was still a student, over $1 million.

When Ghozali graduated from college in 2023, he posted on X that he would finally stop taking selfies. He said he was lucky to have made money from the “stupidest idea” he came up with.

After disappearing from X for months, Ghozali reappeared as interest in memecoins surged. On March 24, he announced the second iteration of Ghozali Everyday — a memecoin and NFT hybrid project on the Base blockchain.

Since its launch, Ghozali’s presale has surpassed its 400 Ether ETHUSD cap. At the time of writing, the presale address reached 527 ETH, around $1.8 million.

However, Ghozali wrote on X that he would refund those who sent more ETH after the cap was reached.

Amid the Bitcoin BTCUSD uptick, interest in memecoins has resurfaced, driven mainly by Solana traders. Data showed that presale projects on Solana raised $100 million in just three days from March 15 to 18.

Community members described the Solana memecoin frenzy as “peak degeneracy,” with users blindly sending Solana SOLUSD tokens to founders announcing “presales” without any guarantee that they would get any tokens back.

In addition to the Solana network, the total value locked (TVL) in crypto exchange Coinbase’s layer-2 network, Base, has doubled as investors eye the blockchain as the next epicenter for memecoins.

On March 23, Base’s TVL reached $2.13 billion. Some industry pundits believe that after Solana’s meme season, the attention might slowly shift to Base, and there could be potential crazy runs in the layer-2 network.

However, on March 14, asset manager Franklin Templeton published an investor note warning that memecoins have “no inherent value or utility.”

Despite this, the asset manager recognized that meme-based tokens have the potential to give investors fast gains.