Late Queen Elizabeth II Sparks Influx of Meme Coins and NFTs

The death of Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, on Thursday hit Britain hard amid a slumping pound, rising inflation and the election of a new prime minister.

All that hasn’t stopped crypto degens from creating NFT photographs, caricatures and artwork — and meme coins — of the late monarch. 

More than 40 crypto coins rolled out on decentralized exchanges on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and Ethereum over the past 24 hours, sporting classy names such as “RIP Queen Elizabeth,” “Queen Elizabeth Inu,” “God Save The Queen,” “Queen Doge,” “Elizabeth II” and “London Bridge Is Down.”

“Rise Of The King” token, in reference to the Queen’s successor King Charles, has pumped around 2,000% since its creation on Friday, currently trending on Dex Screener, which maps popular digital assets on Ethereum-powered Uniswap.

The Elizabeth token, on the other hand, has seen $6.1 million in trade volume over the past 24 hours on BSC-based PancakeSwap.

Most of the projects have insignificant liquidity, which may indicate a potential for short-lived pump and dumps — so would-be traders should heed caution.

NFT communities pay respects — in their own way

On OpenSea, the RIP Queen Elizabeth II “memorial” collection launched with 522 items and has seen the most activity out of Queen-related NFTs on the marketplace. Only 0.23 ETH ($394) worth of the tokens have been sold to date.

While Queen Elizabeth tokens may be new, the UK is no stranger to NFTs. In fact, the Royal Mint, the maker of British coins, is supposedly developing an NFT.

Back in April, Rishi Sunak, the country’s former finance minister, asked the Royal Mint to mint an NFT in a governmental effort to have the country “lead the way” in crypto. 

In any case, at 96 years old, Queen Elizabeth II set a record as the longest-reigning head of state in modern history — odds are the digital assets she inspired won’t last that long.

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