If you've been online in the past four years, then you've probably seen the Kapwing Kitten in the corner of an image, video, or meme somewhere. This iconic little cat is watermarked on every piece of content made with our free online video editor, and thousands of them venture out onto the web every day.

Creators can remove the Kapwing watermark for free by signing in, but a significant portion choose not to. It's these brave creators who have led to our cat's viral spread across the web.

We're proud to announce that you can now own a one-of-a-kind piece of our company's history with the official Kapwing Watermark NFT. We're minting our original watermark as a 1 of 1 collectible token bringing the Kapwing Kitten onto the blockchain and into the future.

Why Is This Watermark Famous?

The Kapwing Kitten has repeatedly appeared on the front page of Reddit, made cameos in PewDiePie videos, and been posted by celebrities like Kanye West,  Jennifer Lopez, and Joe Jonas.

Our watermark isn't exclusive to the internet though, and has made appearances on cable TV. We got messages from our friends that Kapwing was on Comedy Central commercials.

Remember the "It gets bigger" egg? Watermarked.

Millions of people see our little mascot every day, and we wouldn't be where we are without it. It shows up in classrooms, across social media, on subreddits, and in professional presentations around the world.

Kapwing is everywhere creators are; it stands for modern expression, storytelling, and entertainment.

The Watermark's Story

Back in 2017, Eric Lu, one of our cofounders, wanted to start a company in a low-budget, scrappy way. He started by going to Fiver and asked a few digital artists to send him logos featuring an animal and the name "Kapwing". Thus, the purple kitten was born.

Months later, Eric convinced Julia to leave Google and come work with him on Kapwing. Together, they build a suite of video editing tools: the Meme Maker, Subtitler, Sound Effects editor, Resizer, and more. Slowly, Kapwing got more users. Hundreds and then thousands of creators were using Kapwing's simple online tools every week. And nearly every video was watermarked with white text in the corner that read "kapwing.com."

But the plain text watermark was kind of boring. We wanted Kapwing to stand for expressiveness, personality, and humor + entertainment. When we raised money from investors in 2018 and hired four other teammates to join the startup journey, we started thinking about about how we could make the watermark more memorable and more representative of the Kapwing community.

Tara Morris, an illustrator and animator, was one of the first six Kapwingers. She sketched a few different examples of logos they could use instead of the plain text box.

After testing the watermark of different types of images and videos, Tara and Eric decided on #3 and switched the plain text version for the image in our codebase. This PNG became the basis of Kapwing's viral growth. And so the Kapwing watermark started to take over the internet.

Why Bid on the Watermark?

This adorable PNG holds a dear place in our hearts and is a foundation of Kapwing's company history. Cats are an essential part of meme history, so the kitten was a fitting logo for the early days when Kapwing was primarily a meme maker.

The vibrant and light purple colors contrast with the soft yellow of the cat's belly, making it memorable and eye catching. It's also easy to draw – we once drew the kitten in chalk on the streets of San Francisco.

One day, however, we plan to move away from the little kitten logo to a more sophisticated icon as our product and the creators who use it becomes more mature.

Soon, the Kapwing Watermark will be a collectors item and a digital antique. Own a piece of internet history.

How to Bid on the Watermark

We're inspired by the creator-first ethos of the Zora NFT Marketplace and chose to mint our watermark on their platform.

Before you're able to bid on the watermark, you'll first need a crypto wallet and some Ethereum. We'd recommend using either Rainbow Wallet or Metamask as both work well with Zora.  You can read our full NFT tutorial for detailed instructions on how to get started with your wallet.

Once you have a wallet set up and and have purchased some ETH, you're ready to connect your wallet to Zora and place a bid on the watermark. Head over to our listing and click the Connect Wallet button in the top right corner.

Zora will prompt you to connect your wallet to the site. Whether you're using MetaMask, Rainbow, or another wallet - follow the on-screen prompts to verify your wallet and get it connected to the site.

Now that you're logged in, click the Place a Bid button on the Kapwing Watermark listing. On the next screen, enter the ETH amount you want to bid on the watermark. The "Sell On" feature is entirely optional but will let you earn a commision on future sales of the piece if you win the auction. Once you've entered a bid amount go on and click Preview Bid.

Before you can continue, Zora will ask you to upgrade your ETH to use on their site. Click the Upgrade ETH button to convert your crypto into the format that works best on Zora and approve the upgrade using your wallet. Heads up - this will come with a fee!

Once your ETH is converted, you're ready to make your bid. Confirm the bid amount and click the green Place Bid button to enter your bid into the auction. You'll get another wallet notification to confirm your bid one last time and once you do this you're locked in.

Good luck! By minting our first NFT, we want to actively engage with the crypto art community and learn more about what it means to be a creator in this space. Thanks for the support.

The owner of this NFT will receive the original PNG file of our company's famous watermark from 2017. As a bonus, the owner will also receive a folder containing several rejected design concepts for the Kapwing Kitten - see what could have been!