Meme lovers, dog lovers and crypto Twitter poured one out for Kabosu, the beloved Shiba Inu responsible for countless internet joke images and no less than two multi-billion-dollar-market-cap meme coins.
Dog mum Atsuko Sato broke the sad news in a blog post titled ‘Thank you, Pumpkin’ and a poem in Japanese.
Sato announced a farewell party for Kabo-chan on Sunday, 26 Mayat Flower Kaori in Kotsu no Mori, Narita City, from 1pm to 4pm.
Before Kabosu inspired the Dogecoin and Shiba Inu meme coins (the former propelled into the mainstream with support from Elon Musk, the pup was a mainstay of internet memes.
Her amusing face was typically positioned alongside short, nonsensical phrases written in colourful Comic Sans font.
The doge meme underwent a metamorphosis in 2020 via the ‘Swole Doge vs. Cheems’ meme format.
According to meme bible knowyourmeme.com, Swole Doge vs. Cheems originated from a viral Facebook meme before gaining popularity on Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) and Facebook starting in mid-May 2020.
An open-sourced cryptocurrency called Dogecoin (DOGE) inspired by Kabosu was created by Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon and Jackson Palmer from Sydney, Australia.
According to CoinMarketCap, Dogecoin's creators “envisaged it as a fun, light-hearted cryptocurrency that would have greater appeal beyond the core Bitcoin audience, since it was based on a dog meme”.
Although the coin was created back in 2013, it drifted the cryptosphere in obscurity until 2019, when Elon Musk declared it his favourite cryptocurrency
After Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he briefly changed the blue bird logo to a picture of the doge meme.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023
Dogecoin touched an all-time high in December 2021, at the tail end of that year’s crypto rally.
Today, the coin is the eighth-largest cryptocurrency with a $24 billion market capitalisation.
Kabosu is survived through Sato and cat siblings Tsutsuji and Ginnan. She was aged 14 years.
Credit: kabochan.blog.jp