Elon Musk Tweets Tax For Dogecoin Mascot, DOGE Price Increases 5%

Dogecoin (DOGE) jumped 5% on Friday following a tweet from Twitter (aka X) owner and longtime Dogecoin champion Elon Musk. The tweet paid tribute to the late Kabosu, Shiba Inyu, the mastermind behind the popular Doge meme, who passed away on Friday.

The image posted on Twitter includes Harambe, a lowland gorilla who was brutally 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 rising to $0.17 following news of Cabosu's death and Musk's tweet.

Kabosu, who died on Friday at the age of 19, inspired countless memes and meme coins, including Dogecoin (DOGE), Shibu Innu (SHIB), Dogwhiphat (WIFF) and Bonk (BONK). Harambe's death at the Cincinnati Zoo has inspired memes and an online movement.

Launched in December 2013, Dogecoin remains the number one meme coin with a capitalization of $24.3 billion. In March, Dogecoin's price spiked when Mook hinted that Tesla might allow customers to buy their electric cars with Meecoin. There's a long, long history of Musk's tweets and appearances influencing coin prices.

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

Still, even with recent increases, Dogecoin is down 77% from its May 2021 peak of $0.73, the first meme coin to hit.

While Musk is the most famous person to pay tribute to his caboose on Twitter, others are keeping the beloved pup's memory alive — and it seems they're helping Dogecoin's price stay in the green.

Edited by Andrew Hayward.