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On Monday, the team behind Own the Doge, a DAO dedicated to preserving the legacy of the original Doge meme and its creators—the late Shiba Inu Kabosu and her owner, Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato—announced it has been granted IP rights from Sato herself to the likeness of Neiro, her newest dog.
If that’s a mouthful, let’s break it down: A few months after Kabosu passed away in May, Sato adopted another Shiba Inu, Neiro. Given the fact that Kabosu inspired Dogecoin, which is currently worth roughly $59 billion, it took mere seconds before degens began churning out various Neiro-inspired meme coins.
We’re pleased to announce that @kabosumama has officially granted our DAO the Neiro IP.
When Atsuko revealed the name of her new adopted dog, Neiro, many tokens were launched in an attempt to capitalize on her name and story. However, since then, these various tokens have… pic.twitter.com/HCAL0ghCNS
— Own The Doge 🐶🖼 (@ownthedoge) December 16, 2024
In short order, a war erupted over which Neiro token was the real deal, and which were paltry imitators. Ultimately, none of them had Sato's official stamp of approval.
But now, the Own the Doge DAO hopes to adjudicate the whole tawdry affair, with a combination of Sato’s blessing and decentralized voting mechanisms.
“This is not wholesome,” the Own the Doge Twitter account said on X (formerly known as Twitter) Monday about recent Neiro-related infighting. “But it does not have to be this way.”
In the coming weeks, the DAO plans to have its members vote on which Neiro meme coin, if any, should receive the designation of officially holding proper IP rights. An Own the Doge representative told Decrypt that most of those votes are likely to take place after the holidays.
The representative also clarified that Atsuko Sato will hopefully serve as a “guiding light” through this process, and that the pet owner will have ultimate veto power over any decisions reached by the DAO. Both Sato and Own the Doge could also decide to back no Neiro meme coins whatsoever.
Holders of DOG, Own the Doge’s official token—not to be confused with Dogecoin (DOGE), which was created back in 2013 without Sato's blessing—will be eligible to vote via the organization’s DAO on any potential Neiro-related resolutions.
A decent amount of money could be impacted by the DAO’s votes. One Neiro-themed meme coin on Ethereum currently boasts a market capitalization of nearly $663 million. Another, on Solana, is hovering around $5 million.
Edited by Andrew Hayward