From Internet Celebrity Dog to Crypto Legend: Shiba Inu Kabosu and the MEME Culture It Leads

Author: Mia, ChainCatcher

Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher

With overlapping front legs, a tilted cute face, and those determined eyes… this is the "Doge," the meme star that has swept the globe for over a decade. On May 24, the star dog "Doge," the Shiba Inu Kabosu—19-year-old Shiba Inu Kabosu—passed away in her owner's embrace.

For many cryptocurrency enthusiasts, the name "Kabosu" may not be familiar, but the shadow of Dogecoin has surely appeared in their crypto wallets to some extent.

Beyond the world of cryptocurrency, Doge has long been a legendary internet celebrity dog.

The Birth of Internet Celebrity Doge

On November 2, 2005, Kabosu was born in a purebred dog breeding factory in Japan. However, shortly after her birth, the factory went out of business, and Kabosu, along with other "dog friends," was sent to various animal shelters, becoming a true stray dog. The volunteers there saw her round face, cute like a fruit, and named her Kabosu (かぼす), which means "Kabosu citrus" in Japanese.

One day in 2008, kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato met Kabosu and decided to take her home. This encounter changed both of their lives and the destinies of many people around the world.

After adopting Kabosu, Atsuko showered her with love and even found her two feline companions: one named Ginkgo and the other named Azalea.

Atsuko discovered that Kabosu loved the camera, so she began to document their life together with photos. Later, the owner even created a blog titled "Walking with Kabosu-chan."

With her adorable looks and mischievous expressions, Kabosu became a small internet celebrity with many fans.

A photo taken on February 13, 2010, made Kabosu a sensation across the internet: with her paws crossed, slightly tilting her head towards the camera, and a smirk that was both smiling and slightly mocking, it was hard not to chuckle. In fact, at the time, it didn't cause much of a stir, but what Atsuko couldn't have imagined was that three years later, this photo would unexpectedly go viral.

A kind-hearted Reddit user saw Kabosu's photo and turned it into a meme. When paired with phrases like "Wow" and "What are you doing," the photo's charm doubled, making it unforgettable. Soon, the photo quickly gained popularity on networks like Reddit and Tumblr in the U.S., eventually appearing on the "Shiba Inu Confessions" blog. The "Shiba Inu Joke" (known as DogeMEME) began to spread widely through social networks like Facebook and Tumblr, experiencing explosive growth in search rates on major search engines in Europe and America, and also causing a viral spread on China's Weibo.

As this photo spread across the global internet, the image of Shiba Inu Kabosu as Doge captivated netizens worldwide, becoming not only active across the internet but also the logo of Dogecoin, sparking a meme worth over $70 billion.

The Origin of MEME COIN------Dogecoin

In December 2013, American programmer Billy Markus and Australian marketer Jackson Palmer created the cryptocurrency "Dogecoin" by mimicking Bitcoin, using Kabosu's image as its logo.

In fact, the initial purpose of Dogecoin was to satirize the speculative frenzy surrounding Bitcoin, but with the arrival of the explosive bull market in 2021, Dogecoin's value surged to its peak—one Dogecoin was worth $0.7316. After Dogecoin became popular, it started to be used as a tipping currency on foreign social networks. Even Elon Musk contributed to the hype by announcing on April Fool's Day that he would take Dogecoin to the moon and claiming to be the "father of Dogecoin" during appearances, continuously boosting Dogecoin's popularity.

According to Coingecko data, during the 2021 bull market, Dogecoin's market cap reached $75 billion, making it one of the top three cryptocurrencies by market value. With its captivating memes, Dogecoin successfully brought cryptocurrency into the mainstream and ushered in a meme craze in the crypto world, giving rise to numerous animal coins, including Shiba Inu Coin (Shiba) and Floki Coin, among which Shiba Inu Coin's market cap increased by 700,000 times in 2021.

MEME Culture Begins to Dominate the Crypto Scene

Since the explosive popularity of Dogecoin, MEME COINS, with their simple connotations and extremely viral replication, have become a bridge linking the internet and the crypto world, gradually representing the spirit of retail investors. Low market caps and high multiples have become a common expectation and desire among crypto enthusiasts.

Over the past decade, MEME has been deeply intertwined with crypto culture. As the crypto market developed, the MEME family gave rise to various MEME coins from different fields, such as the ERC-20 token centered around Pepe The Frog (PEPE) and the auction product of ConstitutionDAO called people.

The launch of MEME COIN (DEGEN) on the decentralized social network Farcaster saw its market cap reach $700 million, surpassing Farcaster's previous valuation; recently, people has also begun to revive, with a 150% increase in half a month.

Doge has passed, but MEME COINS will live on. Following the death of DOGE's prototype KABOSU, several cryptocurrency celebrities, including Vitalik Buterin, expressed their condolences.

Vitalik posted, "Rest in peace, Kabochan," and "Doge meme Shiba Inu's death" also trended at number six on Baidu's hot search list. From the crypto community to the internet, DOGE represents not just a coin or a meme, but more so a cultural symbol, a segment of our internet memory.