coindesk.com
The Solana (SOL) blockchain's red-hot meme coin dogwifhat (WIF) is heading to Las Vegas after community members raised enough funds to display the token's mascot – a Shiba Inu wearing a pink beanie – on the Sphere, the city's orb-shaped entertainment venue.
The campaign garnered over $690,000 in USDC stablecoin in donations as of Wednesday, completing the fundraising in less than four days and overshooting the $650,000 target, the campaign's website said.
"Dogwifhat on sphere fully funded," Ansem, a leading figure of the campaign and one of the five controllers of the multisig wallet that received the donations, said in an X post.
Some observers, however, pointed out that such vanity actions are typical around market tops. During the last bull run, for example, a number of crypto companies put their names on sports arenas, including FTX (which later collapsed) and Crypto.com (which didn't).
Read more: Dogwifhat Community Plan to Put the Meme on the Vegas Sphere
Dogwifhat became an instant hit since its launch late last year, emerging as one of the most popular memes of this crypto market cycle, driven by crypto investors' bewildering affection for canine-themed coins such as dogecoin (DOGE), shiba inu (SHIB) or bonk (BONK).
Benefitting from the fundraising's attention, WIF gained 35% over the past 24 hours, CoinMarketCap data shows, while the broader crypto market was modestly up with bitcoin (BTC) and the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) advancing roughly 3%-4% during the same period.
WIF also toppled floki (FLOKI) as the fourth largest meme token by market capitalization, reaching a $2.6 billion market value months after its launch, Messari data shows. WIF is currently the 52th most valuable token among all cryptocurrencies, while the largest meme coin DOGE is the 10th with a 24 billion market cap.
Meme coins comprise a small, but growing part of the overall digital asset market, and are one of the most risky assets among the already volatile cryptocurrencies.
Recently, meme coin prices skyrocketed over the past weeks as the crypto market heated up with bitcoin (BTC) reaching new all-time highs. Historically, meme coin rallies often signaled increased frothiness on the market, foreshadowing a correction.