Solana Meme Coin Michi Pumps After Ariana Grande Shares the Cat's Photo

Solana meme coin Michi jumped 18% early Monday, according to data from CoinGecko, after pop artist Ariana Grande shared the meme that inspired the coin on her Instagram story. 

The Michi meme was edited to hold a pink “love potion,” alongside posters of a man adored with kiss prints on the wall. This is the work of a Grande fan account in reference to a music video the singer released for her single “The Boy Is Mine.”

“I think the boy is hers, [I don’t know],” the post reads, followed by the image of the meme. “Hey it’s me,” a Michi Solana Instagram account commented. 

In the eight hours that followed Grande’s repost, Michi only moved up 3% to $0.22. But once pseudonymous crypto influencer Ansem—who previously helped propel hyped coins like Dogwifhat (WIF)—highlighted Grande’s repost on his Twitter, the chart spiked 18% to $0.26 in just an hour.

This move comes after a number of celebrities have publicly announced their venture into crypto. Most notably, media personality Caitlyn Jenner launched two meme coins and musician Iggy Azalea debuted her own, while former kickboxer Andrew Tate set out on a meme coin spending spree late last week.

It’s unlikely that this was part of a hack of the artist’s account, as she’s continued with her normal social media activity, including a happy birthday message to her mom.

The move sparked debate on Crypto Twitter on whether or not the post happened organically. But many believe that this was simply an organic reposting of the meme. After all, Michi was a meme before it was a meme coin, and it's likely that most people sharing the image are unaware of its crypto connection.

In turn, there’s a good chance that Grande has no idea that the meme coin exists, and that she instead just wanted to repost a fan-made meme promoting her freshly released music video.

“The memes most of these coins are based on are already viral. If a celeb posts about said meme, it’s because it’s already viral. They’re not promoting the underlying meme coin,” a Twitter user explained. “It’s a great endorsement for the meme itself.”

Decrypt reached out to Ariana Grande's team for clarification, but did not immediately receive a response.

Edited by Andrew Hayward