The meme token named after Elon Musk's dog has soared 200% this year
- A crypto token named after Elon Musk's dog has soared 200% this year.
- Floki is another Shiba Inu-themed token, and was created after Musk posted a picture of his Shiba Inu puppy in 2022.
A meme crypto token named after Elon Musk's dog has soared 200% since the start of the year, beating the gains on other Musk favorites like like dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
Floki climbed to $0.00024 as of 10:00 am ET, up 199% from its price at the start of the year at $0.000008. That's the biggest surge among the crypto market's top meme coins, surpassing gains posted by dogecoin, which rose 32%, and Shiba Inu, which rose 45% in January, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Floki has also handily beaten gains seen in mainstream crypto tokens like bitcoin and ethereum, which have gained 39% and 31% respectively since the start of the year.
The jump in prices comes as Floki holders approved a proposal to burn 4.97 trillion, or $55 million of the tokens, to remove them from circulation, a tactic that can be used to boost a coin's price.
The token, another Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency, was created in 2021, shortly after Musk posted a picture of his new Shiba Inu puppy with the caption "Floki has arrived." By then, Musk had cemented his association with the Japanese dog breed, after touting Dogecoin and Shiba Inu to his Twitter followers.
Musk has periodically posted pictures of his dog Floki on Twitter, though he's given no clear indication that he's involved with the Floki crypto project.
After a steep sell-off following the collapse of FTX, crypto prices have rallied to start the year as investors assess falling inflation and price in softer rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. This week, Dogecoin soared 10% after the Financial Times reported Musk was looking to add a payments system to Twitter, leading to speculation the meme coin could be accepted as payment on the social media site.