Introducing Cocoro (COCORO), the New Meme Coin from the Makers of the Original Doge Meme

The coin's debut coincided with a blog post from Atsuko Sato, the owner of the late Kabosu—the Shiba Inu that inspired Dogecoin—introducing her newly adopted 10-year-old rescue dog, Cocoro.

The group behind the original Doge meme's intellectual property, Own the Doge, has launched a new meme coin on Base.

What Happened: The coin, named Cocoro (COCORO), is a token on the Ethereum layer-2 network being developed by Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN).

Its arrival coincides with the introduction of a newly adopted 10-year-old rescue dog, also named Cocoro, by Atsuko Sato—the owner of Kabosu, the Shiba Inu that inspired Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE). The IP around the dog and meme is being managed by Own the Doge.

Upon its launch on Saturday, the coin quickly achieved a market cap of over $80 million. It has since dropped to around $46 million with a token price close to $0.046. The tokenomics show 75% of the supply was locked into liquidity pools, 20% went to airdrops for DOG and NEIRO holders, and the remaining 5% was allocated to a DAO reserve.

Discussing the project's footprint, Smoke—the pseudonymous CEO of Own the Doge—told Decrypt that they chose Base for its scalability and affordability.

"We are big fans of what Base is doing for the ecosystem. They have made it fast and affordable to build on Ethereum at scale," Smoke said, noting that their previous token, DOG, has over 1 million token holders on Base.

We are delighted to welcome the latest member of Atsuko's family, Cocoro!

With Atsuko's blessing, OTD is launching $Cocoro. The launch is intended to defend against unofficial, extractive deployments, while being as fair as possible and benefitting Atsuko's existing supporters.https://t.co/lK6W9Z8u8Z pic.twitter.com/6jZZK5JgS3

Dogecoin, which launched in 2013 without Sato's consent, went on to become one of the most valuable meme coins. In contrast, Own the Doge (DOG) was founded in 2021 after securing the rights to the original Doge meme photo, providing it with a formal IP foundation.

Coinbase and Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOD) are among the platforms where investors can gain exposure to meme coins. Alternatively, investors may consider ETFs like ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSE:BITO) or Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (NYSE:WGMI) for broader crypto-related plays.

Why It Matters: Following the launch of Cocoro, the price of DOG rose by 25%, according to CoinGecko data. Meanwhile, NEIRO—another meme token that launched last year with an adoption by Sato—fell by 14% following the arrival of Cocoro. Although the NEIRO token won a DAO vote for official backing, a formal agreement is yet to be reached.

The launch of Cocoro marks a shift in how meme coins linked to Sato's dogs are being introduced, aiming to create official avenues and clarity around IP for future projects.