A coup has happened while you were not paying attention

A small coup once took place in Ethereum’s early days…not a fork or governance vote, but a literal on-chain takeover between some of its founders. Back in 2016, Alex Van de Sande (Avsa) launched a joke token called Unicorn Meat, poking fun at Ethereum’s unicorn mascot by tokenizing “grinded unicorns.” It started as an April Fool’s experiment, but like many things in early Ethereum, it accidentally became something more, one of the first DAO-style experiments and possibly the first trustless token swap ever.

Members of the “Unicorn Meat Association” could make proposals, vote, and even seize control of the contract. That’s exactly what happened when Piper Merriam, another core Ethereum dev, staged an on-chain coup and took ownership from Avsa. Vitalik even interacted with the reddit posg himself. It was playful, chaotic, and years ahead of its time… a few months later, the real DAO hack would happen, but Unicorn Meat had already lived the prototype version of that story.

Now, almost a decade later, the contract has been revived in the same spirit, through another coup. Unicorn Meat is back and tradable again. It’s the only memecoin ever created by Ethereum Foundation devs, and a genuine piece of on-chain history.

If you appreciate old contracts, early Ethereum culture, or just good blockchain stories, this one’s worth biting into. Become a carnivore. 🥩