Elon Musk Tweets Tribute to Dogecoin Mascot, DOGE Price Spikes 5% – Decrypt

Dogecoin (DOGE) jumped 5% on Friday following a tweet by Twitter (aka X) owner and long-time Dogecoin champion Elon Musk. The tweet honored the late Kabosu, the Shiba Inu behind the beloved Doge meme, who passed away on Friday.

The tweeted image also included Harambe, the lowland gorilla who was tragically killed in 2016 and became a meme icon.

Dogecoin is currently trading at $0.16, according to CoinGecko. DOGE started the day at $0.15 before surging to $0.17 following news of Kabosu’s death and Musk’s tweet.

Kabosu, who passed away at the age of 19 on Friday, inspired countless memes and meme coins, including Dogecoin (DOGE), Shibu Inu (SHIB), Dogwifhat (WIF), and Bonk (BONK). Harambe also inspired memes and an online movement after his death in a Cincinnati Zoo.

Launched in December 2013, Dogecoin remains the number-one meme coin with a market capitalization of $24.3 billion. In March, the price of Dogecoin spiked when Musk suggested that Tesla may allow customers to buy its electric cars with the meme coin. There’s a long, long history of Musk’s tweets and appearances influencing the price of the coin.

Earlier this month, riding the GameStop and meme coin frenzy after the return of Roaring Kitty to social media, Dogecoin jumped 7% in value on May 15.

Still, even with the recent surges, Dogecoin is down 77% from its all-time high price of $0.73 that the original meme coin hit in May 2021.

While Musk is the most prominent person on Twitter showing respect to Kabosu, others are keeping the beloved pup’s memory alive—and apparently helping to keep Dogecoin’s price in the green all the while.

Edited by Andrew Hayward