Elon Musk has seemingly left behind the Dogecoin for a shiny new dog coin; Shiba Inu. Shiba Inu is a dog breed. More specifically, the dog that is used in the Dogecoin memes is a Shiba Inu. Given the popularity of Dogecoin, the coin seems to have been created to benefit from that popularity.
The coin is created by someone who is only known by the name Ryoshi. Little else is known about the founder. This is very similar to the case of bitcoin with Satoshi Nakamoto. A moniker that no one has claimed is them to this date.
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Musk posted a cryptic tweet on his Twitter earlier today apparently in reference to a dog breed he’s getting. But the message behind the tweet was received loud and clear by the market.
The tweet simply said, “My Shiba Inu will be named Floki.”
After the tweet went live, the price of Shiba Inu rose quickly. Rising 23% in a couple of hours.
More interestingly is the creation of another dog coin named Floki. The coin seems to have been created after Musk tweeted and now the coin is up a whopping 3,000 percent.
The billionaire has always been a die-hard fan of Doge. Always tweeting in support of the coin and the project. He calls it the coin of the future. But it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that the billionaire’s tweets started leading the coin to pumps.
With the movement of market prices after his tweets, people seem to have started to hang on to the billionaire’s every word. Putting money into a newly made coin just because he mentioned that he was going to name his dog that.
Shiba Inu price pumps after Elon Musk's tweet | Source: SHIBUSD on TradingView.com
This is not the first time that Elon Musk has mentioned Shiba Inu. He made reference to the coin earlier in March when he tweeted that he was going to get a new dog. A Shiba Inu breed. The tweet read, “I’m getting a Shiba Inu. #resistanceisfutile.”
The tweet made no mention of the coin itself. But nonetheless, people took it as such and the coin pumped. SHIB, as the Shiba Inu coin is commonly known, has pretty much followed the pattern of Dogecoin ever since. Rising and falling accordingly whenever Musk tweeted and people bought the coin.
There have been a number of meme coins made as a nod to the Dogecoin. Coins like the DogeFather, Shiba Inu, ShibaPup, and others. Shiba Inu touts itself as the Dogecoin killer.
These coins have no use cases really. If anything, they are just coins made to pump and dump and make a quick buck from. There is nothing remarkable about the projects themselves.
But the remarkable thing is how these coins seem to gain market value. Coins with seemingly nothing to offer the market somehow end up with a huge market valuation. Shiba Inu currently has a $7.32 billion market cap.
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All of these coins have one thing in common; they are all in reference to dogs.
Dogecoin itself that started all of it was created as a “tongue-in-cheek” joke towards bitcoin and the crypto market. It was not meant to do anything. Even the founders sold off all of their coins early on.
Musk has been talking about getting a Shiba Inu for months now but has still not gotten one. And people are using his tweets to manipulate the market.
Whether Musk meant the tweets to promote to coin is not known. But investors certainly think that’s what it’s meant to do.
Musk has been talking about getting a Shiba Inu for months now but there is none in sight.
Featured image from Observer, chart from TradingView.com