What Happened to Putting Dogwifhat on the Las Vegas Sphere?

Nearly three months after organizers raised $700,000, Solana meme coin sensation Dogwifhat still hasn’t been advertised on the Las Vegas Sphere. Donors and investors are getting restless. Some have even demanded a refund.

“The Sphere is still being worked on,” Mihir, one of the Dogwifhat fundraiser organizers, said in the Solana meme coin’s Telegram channel. “These things take time and we're all volunteering our time working for the meme.”

After a meteoric start to the year, during which time the price of the Dogwifhat token increased by more than 100x, notable community members of the Solana meme coin devised the ambitious plan to put the WIF mascot on the Las Vegas Sphere. These five individuals, including the aforementioned Mihir and crypto influencer Ansem, created a multisig wallet (the kind that requires more than one person to approve a transaction) and asked people to donate crypto so they could pull off the audacious marketing stunt. 

In a matter of days, the fundraiser hit its target of $650,000 and over time neared $700,000. To this day the money has sat in the wallet largely untouched. Since the site for the fundraiser was made, $11,906 in USDC stablecoins has been transferred out of the wallet—the last transaction taking place at the start of April. 

Now, the wallet sits at a total balance of $699,159. 

Mihir told Decrypt the fundraising team is in touch with the Sphere and it has “an idea” on costs. But he emphasized that working as a group of volunteers is an incredibly hard task. Representatives for the Vegas Sphere declined Decrypt's request for comment.

Meanwhile, the fundraising team has yet to provide any documentation that it's been in touch with the Sphere’s marketing team or put any money down for the ad buy, frustrating supporters.

Ansem has received the most heat, with multiple tweets from high profile Crypto Twitter accounts calling him out. “Ansem was a figurehead, or at least a megaphone, for the money raised,” pseudonymous Twitter user "heartereum" told Decrypt. 

“We getting refunds for wif on the sphere or…?” the account tweeted yesterday.

“Hey you scamming fuck when was WIF going on the sphere?” demanded Crypto Bitlord, a Crypto Twitter staple and notorious troll.

Ansem, who has 456,000 Twitter followers, relentlessly promoted the fundraiser in March. In one tweet, the influencer targeted the ad to go live as he competed in an influencer fight league in April. Later, he appeared to aim for a May date and proposed a party to celebrate. Since then, the influencer has remained silent, ignoring posts mentioning it. It seems to have further fueled speculation that the marketing stunt has fallen flat on its face. Ansem didn't immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

“If it was canceled, we would let you know immediately and funds will be returned,” Mihir reassured donors via Telegram. 

“We are exploring partnership angles for the sphere and trying to maximize the effect,” the Dogwifcoin Telegram bot chirped moments later. “We are getting closer to a date set!”