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The dog who inspired Dogecoin has died

The late Kabosu pictured with her owner Atsuko Sato in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, on March 19, 2024 (Philip Fong / AFP / Getty Images via CNN Newsource) The late Kabosu pictured with her owner Atsuko Sato in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, on March 19, 2024 (Philip Fong / AFP / Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
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Kabosu, the dog that launched a thousand ¡°doge¡± memes, has died, her owner announced Friday.

The Japanese shiba inu ¡°fell into a deep sleep¡± on Friday morning at 18 years of age, Atsuko Sato wrote in a .

¡°Outside the window, birds were singing on a beautiful morning. As I was touching her, she gently passed away,¡± wrote Sato, a kindergarten teacher in the Japanese city of Sakura. ¡°I think she was the happiest dog in the world.¡±

Kabosu became one of the most recognizable animals on the internet back in 2010 when a photo of her posing with folded paws and a quizzical expression spread across forums such as Reddit.

That sparked a proliferation of ¡°doge¡± memes, based on an intentional misspelling of the word ¡°dog,¡± with internet users photoshopping Kabosu¡¯s face onto pastries, landmarks and other animals.

The popularity of ¡°doge¡± memes was cemented in December 2013, when Kabosu became the face of alternative cryptocurrency Dogecoin ¡ª a tongue-in-cheek response to Bitcoin that reflected the internet¡¯s love of animal memes. Other meme tokens followed, including a shiba inu coin.

Dogecoin counts Elon Musk among its . In May 2021, he polled his millions of followers on Twitter on whether Tesla should the cryptocurrency as payment.

A month earlier, when cryptocurrencies were seeing a , demand for Dogecoin spiked so much that the cryptocurrency trading system of Robinhood, a stock trading and investing platform.

An by Dogecoin Friday called Kabosu the community¡¯s ¡°inspiration.¡± ¡°The impact this one dog has made across the world is immeasurable,¡± the post read.

Sato in a series of Instagram posts in 2022 that Kabosu had leukemia and liver disease. She is planning to hold a ¡°farewell gathering¡± on Sunday.

Mai Nishiyama contributed reporting

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