Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Meme-coin Shiba inu was able to join the ranks of the top 20 cryptos worldwide after just 14 months.
Shiba Inu's market capitalization reached $12 billion on Thursday. Dogecoin took six times as long to reach that mark.
Elon Musk posted a picture of his dog Floki to Twitter on Monday, which triggered a huge rally in the dogecoin rival.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter 10 Things Before The Opening Bell.
Move over dogecoin. The spin-off Shiba inu has seen a surge of 350% in just a month. This is roughly the same as bitcoin's gains in a year.
According to Coinmarketcap, the price of the cryptocurrency inspired by dogecoin has increased by more than 300% in just a week. It is now among the 20 largest coins according to market capitalization with a value $12 billion.
It has done all this in just 14 months from its August 2020 inception. Dogecoin took 88 months to reach the same size, six times longer than Shiba Inu.
Elon Musk, a Tesla CEO and crypto enthusiast, was the latest catalyst for Shiba-Inu-fever. He tweeted about his dog, Floki.
Musk tweeted Monday a cute photo of his Shiba Inu with the caption "Floki Frunkpuppy".
Tweet Elon Musk @Floki Frunkpuppy
The coin was created by Ryoshi on Thursday and has since risen from $0.00001348 up to $0.00003068, an additional 41% in the 24 hours ending at 6:32 AM ET.
After a few weeks of volatility, pullbacks and soaring prices, crypto bulls have piled back in this week. For the first time since May, bitcoin, the number one crypto coin, has seen its market cap rise to $1 trillion. Shiba Inu now ranks higher than the likes of stellar, polygon and gaming token axie Infinity. This week, the value of the crypto coin bitcoin had nearly doubled in a matter of months.
However, not all market-watchers believe that the Shiba Inu surge was due to Elon Musk tweet.
Elizer Ndinga (21Shares research lead) said that there is no evidence that the tweet explicitly supported the SHIB token in the same way as he did in the past with memes for dogecoin.
