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Unicorn Meat logo

Unicorn Meat(πŸ–)

Token
Part of The Avsa Collection
0xED6aC8de7c7C...2A1232DDef9A
HomesteadContract #13KSource VerifiedEdit this contract
Deployed March 25, 2016 (10 years ago)Block 1,211,142

A token created by the Ethereum Foundation's Alex Van de Sande (avsa) in March 2016 to demonstrate on-chain token swaps, upgrades, and quadratic voting.

Homestead EraVerified Source

Historical Significance

Unicorn Meat was created through the Grinder Association DAO, which allowed Unicorn holders to grind their Unicorns into Unicorn Meat. The DAO demonstrated quadratic voting, token swaps, and token mutations, all in 2016. Only 7 Unicorns have ever been ground, producing approximately 9,000 Unicorn Meat tokens. In April 2016, core developer Piper Merriam passed a DAO proposal to seize control and take 5 ETH, creating one of Ethereum's earliest governance incidents.

Context

In February 2016, the Ethereum Foundation launched a fundraising initiative. avsa deployed the Foundation TipJar and Unicorns, a 0-decimal non-standard ERC-20. Donating 2.014 ETH to the TipJar minted 1 Unicorn. Only 2,717 were ever created. A month later, avsa deployed the Unicorn Meat Grinder Association DAO, allowing Unicorn holders to convert their Unicorns into Unicorn Meat, a 3-decimal non-standard ERC-20. Ethereum officially announced the project on Twitter. During The DAO hack in June 2016, avsa cited the Grinder as helpful context for understanding DAO governance failures. In July 2025, a holder repeated Piper's move: passed a proposal, transferred ownership, minted 100 million tokens, renounced the contract, and wrapped it for trading.

Ethereum Announcement

Ethereum Announcement

Source: X

Token Information
Logo
Unicorn Meat logo
via RPC
Token Name
Unicorn Meat
Symbol
πŸ–
Decimals
3
Key Facts
Deployment Block
1,211,142
Deployment Date
Mar 25, 2016, 02:48 AM
Code Size
1.9 KB
Gas at Deploy
695,056
Transactions by Year
20167
20212
20259

Description

Unicorn Meat is a 3-decimal non-standard ERC-20 deployed by Alex Van de Sande (avsa) in March 2016. avsa was one of the original Ethereum Foundation developers who helped launch mainnet in July 2015. He previously created MistCoin with Fabian Vogelsteller in November 2015.

The token was produced through the Grinder Association DAO, which accepted Unicorns and output Unicorn Meat. The DAO included quadratic voting and token mutation mechanics. Piper Merriam's governance takeover a week after launch became early Ethereum lore.

In July 2025, webtrue.eth repeated the takeover, minted 100 million tokens, renounced the contract, and wrapped it as an ERC-20 for trading. The wrapped contract has no admin keys.

Source Verified

Etherscan verified

Historian Categories

Token
Heuristic Analysis

The following characteristics were detected through bytecode analysis and may not be accurate.

Detected Type: Token
Has ERC-20-like patterns

Bytecode Overview

Opcodes1,950
Unique Opcodes157
Jump Instructions98
Storage Operations55

External Links

Wrapped as

Later contracts that represent this one. Holding one of these counts as holding the original on a collector card.

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