Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Sr.), the iconic rapper and entrepreneur, has joined the Dogecoin movement by backing a DOGE transaction he described as “incredible and historical.” His involvement with Dogecoin is closely tied to BIG3, the 3-on-3 basketball league he helped found.
BIG3 features former NBA stars competing in a three-on-three format as an alternative to traditional five-on-five basketball.
Last month, BIG3 introduced a new ownership model that allows each of its 12 teams to sell tokenized shares. Each team received an allocation of 1,000 NFTs: 975 “Gold” NFTs, each priced at $5,000, and 25 “Fire” NFTs, each priced at $25,000.
On Wednesday, Bill Lee, a co-founder of the MyDoge wallet, tweeted to Ice Cube: “if you dig DOGE, me and DogeArmy will scoop it up too,” responding to an earlier post in which Ice Cube mentioned Snoop Dogg had purchased two teams.
Ice Cube replied to Lee with a tweet saying, “Come on wit it Bill, you know I’m down with the #DogeArmy.”
Come on wit it Bill, you know I’m down with the #DogeArmy https://t.co/d9C1TzS4ff
— Ice Cube (@icecube) May 4, 2022
On the same day, BIG3 issued a press release announcing that Lee purchased all 25 “Fire” NFTs—totaling $650,000 (4.86 million DOGE)—for the team named “Alien,” and completed the transaction using DOGE.
Ice Cube called the purchase “incredible and historical,” while BIG3 labeled it “the largest commercial transaction in DOGE history.”
Incredible and historical https://t.co/ouulpk0xdd
— Ice Cube (@icecube) May 4, 2022
The “Fire” NFTs offer enhanced utility and greater ownership rights, including voting rights, naming rights, game-management privileges, merchandise rights, and licensing rights for the team logo or intellectual property. Additionally, if a “Fire” NFT owner resells their NFT, they receive a 40% share of the secondary sale proceeds.
In a statement, Lee described his perspective on NFT projects and their evolution:
“When others were buying NFT ape and owl images, I believed NFTs with utility represented the next frontier. Owning a basketball team is a dream, and BIG3 has changed the NFT game by offering ownership rights like licensing/IP, voting/team management, and merchandise.”