This Week on Crypto Twitter: New Dog, Old Tricks

For weeks, a dog-themed Solana meme coin relentlessly dominated Crypto Twitter discourse, with no end in sight. But it would finally appear that BONK fever has broken—thanks to… another dog-themed Solana meme coin. 

Dogwifhat (WIF), an upstart meme coin depicting exactly what you’d think it would, rocked Twitter this week after climbing a ludicrous 227,000% in less than a month. WIF holders and Solana ecosystem enthusiasts giddily basked in the absurdity of the coin’s success this week, attempting to will it ever-upward. 

If Dogwifhat’s supporters were laughing, though, they were laughing all the way to the bank. Activity on the token, combined with trading on other Solana meme coins, managed to push weekly trading volume on Solana decentralized exchanges (DEXs) above that on Ethereum for the first time ever on Thursday. And Dogwifhat rose so sharply that it received attention from mainstream financial analysts.  

Contributing to a mood of goofy optimism online this week, Bitwise, the crypto index fund manager, released an ad on Twitter starring Johnathan Goldsmith, aka Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man In the World,” teasing the prospect of a Bitcoin ETF. 

The financial product, which would allow traditional finance institutions and investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin with holding any cryptocurrency, hasn’t even been approved yet by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But frenzied anticipation of the product’s potential approval in January has lifted BTC to yearly highs. 

Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren published a tweet this week that was quickly slapped with a community note, after the politician issued a scathing letter to crypto lobbying groups accusing them of enabling terrorism.

“Cryptocurrency is objectively less than 1% of all monetary illicit activity,” the large warning below Warren’s Tweet now reads. “There is also nothing supporting the claim that it could threaten national security. Cash is untraceable, blockchains are public ledgers.”

Perhaps the most layered Twitter interaction of the week came courtesy of technology reviewer and YouTuber Marques “MKBHD” Brownlee, who crowned the Solana Saga smartphone 2023’s “Bust of the Year.” Though the phone soared in popularity last week, that frenzy was due to the realization that free airdrops available on the phone had become more valuable than the phone’s $599 sticker price. 

In an attempt to salvage the moment, Solana Labs embraced the title—asking Brownlee to ship the “Bust of the Year” trophy to their office, and referring to the Saga as “award winning” in subsequent, tongue-in-cheek posts. 

But disgruntled Solana users, many of whom ordered a Saga smartphone only to discover that Solana Labs accidentally sold many phones it didn’t have in inventory, were sure to have the last laugh. 

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.