Dogecoin (DOGE) experienced a couple of brief price spikes following the death of Kabosu, the Shiba Inu that inspired the memecoin.
The first price spike occurred around 1:40 a.m. ET when news broke about Kabosu’s passing. The official Dogecoin X (formerly Twitter) account posted, “Today, Kabosu, our community’s shared friend and inspiration, peacefully passed, in the arms of her person. The impact this one dog has made across the world is immeasurable.”
Kabosu’s image went viral in the early 2010s, leading to the creation of Dogecoin in December 2013. Dogecoin is now the largest memecoin by market capitalization and has inspired several other major dog-themed memecoins.
The second spike occurred around 11 a.m. ET, when Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, X, and SpaceX, tweeted about Kabosu’s death. Musk shared an image of the Shiba meme alongside a gorilla, writing, “OG Doge has ascended to heaven to be with his friend Harambe.” This tweet references another piece of internet history involving Harambe, a gorilla killed in 2016 after a child entered its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, sparking widespread internet memorials and memes.
Musk, renowned for his influence on the crypto market, previously propelled Dogecoin to record highs in the summer of 2021 through his frequent tweets and endorsements. Despite claiming in December 2023 that he spends “hardly” any time thinking about cryptocurrency, his recent tweet still significantly impacted Dogecoin’s price.
At the time of publication, Dogecoin trades around $0.17, up 3.8% over the past 24 hours, according to The Block’s pricing data. During this period, approximately $2.8 billion worth of Dogecoin has been traded. Related tokens like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and FLOKI (FLOKI) also saw brief spikes following the news.
