The relationship between Elon Musk and dog coins is something I’ve always been curious about, but when I整理 it again, it turns out to be quite fascinating.

On March 14, 2021, Musk tweeted on Twitter, “Trying to get a Shiba Inu.” At first glance, it seems like a story about a pet, but the hashtags told the whole story. After that, the price of Shiba Inu (SHIB) jumped from 1/0.5 millionth of a dollar to 1/34 millionths of a dollar within a few months. In just under 10 months, it delivered a return of over 15,000%.

Originally, the pioneer of meme coins was Dogecoin (DOGE), which launched in 2013. Musk appeared to have been promoting DOGE since the beginning of 2021, and then later he also seemed to turn his attention to SHIB. However, unlike DOGE, SHIB is a token that was only created the previous year. It was as if Musk’s offhand remark suddenly sparked a surge of attention.

But this was clearly a bubble. After reaching an all-time high of 1/88 millionths of a dollar in November 2021, it collapsed rapidly. In a year and a half, it lost more than 90% of its value, and in 2023 it fell below 1/7 millionths of a dollar. After that, recovery remained sluggish, and even during the year-end bull run of 2023, it only climbed back to about 1/11 millionths of a dollar.

What’s interesting is that Musk hasn’t talked about Shiba Inu since last July. Meanwhile, SHIB’s price movements have continued to track DOGE. When DOGE recorded +140% in March this year, SHIB was also lifted. It fell again after that, but it has still held above 1/11 millionths of a dollar.

Looking at recent trends, starting in October DOGE began rising again, gaining +300% in just two months. Today, DOGE is well above its 2024 high, and it’s only about -40% from its all-time high in 2021. By contrast, SHIB is down -65%.

However, there’s a difference. When DOGE hit its peak in May 2021, SHIB still hadn’t. SHIB reached its peak in November. Today, SHIB is trading above 1/30 millionths of a dollar, but it still hasn’t caught up to the high it reached in November 2021. What this suggests is that DOGE ran out of steam in the same year Musk started pushing it—2021—whereas SHIB was influenced by a second phase of a speculative bubble that continued for several more months and didn’t happen with DOGE.

After Musk became involved in politics, his exposure to crypto assets decreased. However, DOGE is special—so much so that Trump even named a new department that supports public spending cuts after DOGE. Even so, DOGE’s market cap is still far below its 2021 peak.

DOGE’s fundamental problem as a crypto project is that there’s essentially nothing there. Technically, it’s nothing more than a meme coin. In SHIB’s case, Layer2 Shibarium has been introduced, but it didn’t end up having a major impact on the price. Without promotion like Musk’s, it’s hard to see a new big performance. In the meantime, other meme coins kept popping up one after another, receiving even more promotion.

In the end, it was a dog-coin boom that began with Elon Musk’s words. Looking back now, it’s clear just how speculative it was.