Dogecoin Pup Owner’s New Shiba Inu Ends Up in NEIRO Memecoin Drama

Kabosu’s owner announced his new Shiba Inu dog, Neiro, on X, which led to the creation of a large number of NEIRO tokens on Solana.

Two major NEIRO tokens have emerged; the most popular one initially reached a market cap of $100 million but later suffered a sell-off as debate began within the community over which was the real NEIRO token.

The trading frenzy saw Solana’s on-chain volumes surpass Ethereum, with the NEIRO distributor making $5.4 million in profits from the token’s popularity.

The real owner of Neiro, however, distanced himself from the incident and warned users against “token scams.”

Kabosu’s owner didn’t know what to expect when he went to X on Sunday and announced his new Shiba Inu pet, Neiro.

Kabosu was the pet dog that gave birth to the memecoin dogecoin {{DOGE}} and the subsequent $37 billion dog-themed memecoin industry that includes shiba inu (SHIB), floki (FLOKI), and others. Kabosu passed away in May at the age of 17, leaving behind a statue and a memecoin worth $18 billion.

But Kabosu’s human owner’s X account, @Kabosumama, adopted a ten-year-old Shiba Inu named Neiro last week and called him her “new family member.”

Initial reactions to this announcement were full of support for the new pet, but it soon turned into a hypefest as people started using Neiro’s likes to launch tokens on Solana.

Hundreds of Neiro or Neiro-themed tokens were minted on the Solana token generator Pump Fun, with one quickly reaching tens of millions of dollars in market cap. Later, some traders discovered that while the token with a $100 million capitalization was the most popular, another was actually the first token to exist, changing the dynamics and causing a short sell-off.

This discovery prompted investors to quickly allocate capital or buy and sell both tokens, resulting in the creation of two Neiro-themed Solana tokens, both of which have reached a combined trading volume of $340 million.

Such trading behavior propelled Solana to the forefront of overall blockchain activity on Monday, with on-chain volumes outpacing perennial leader Ethereum. DefiLlama data shows Solana generated $1.8 billion in trading volume each on Sunday and Monday, while Ethereum remained below $1 billion.

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Therefore, the more popular price increase for NEIRO pocketed at least $5.4 million in profits for its distributor, on-chain analytics tool Bubblemaps said in an X post. The distributor bought a large portion of the initial supply using several wallets shortly after the token went live and sold it as it went viral.

Both NEIRO tokens are actively traded and listed on exchanges as of Tuesday, with each community crowning itself as a true community and aiming to replicate the success of Dogecoin.

However, according to Neiro’s owner @Kabosumama, none of the tokens are legitimate.

“I see a lot of Kabosu and Neiro related tokens. To clarify, I do not support any crypto projects other than @ownthedog $dog as they own the original Doge photo and intellectual property,” he said in an X post. “They are dedicated to doing good, charity and Doge culture every day.”

“Please beware of token scams.”