The long-awaited merger of Ethereum has happened, and the community can’t stand by. Moments after the historic crypto event, a user minted the first immutable token (NFT) based on the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus.
Officially, the merge took place on Thursday at 6:42 AM UTC in block 15537393. The first announcement of the minting and sale of the NFT came shortly after at 07:08 AM UTC.
The NFT, a time capsule for the moment of the first mint bear NFT in the face of the iconic panda, quickly bought at a price of 36 ether (ETH).
After announcing the first PoS NFT, Crypto Twitter exploded with tweets and comments. Community feedback ranged from “questionable decision making” to calling it “fire”. One user even asked if Merge panda would be the new monkey, a reference to the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club characters.
Related: Breaking: Historic day for cryptocurrency as Ethereum proof-of-stake merger happens
After news spread of the first NFT mints and sales, an avalanche of early adopters of the new blockchain operating system began.
Sheldon Evans, founder of lifestyle brand Bloom Web3, tweeted that the brand has created the first official NFT pool for minting on the PoS network.
While some are proudly showing off their first digital assets and coin collections, others in the Ethereum community are proudly showing off their first purchases on the new system.
Consensys, Joseph Lubin’s blockchain software company, is encouraging community members to make their first PoS transaction by minting one of their own commemorative NFTs to celebrate the merger.
Merge has also sparked the creativity of big names like Beeple, who created a Merge-inspired illustration of a large Ethereum logo slowly taking shape with the support of scientists. Members of the Ethereum Foundation also created, composing and performing a song dedicated to the event.
