What’s Dogwifhat (WIF)? The Solana Canine Meme Coin With a Hat – Decrypt

What do you get when a cute canine places on a fair cuter hat? A meme coin, after all!

Meme coin traders love canines, and a photograph of a pooch sporting a pink woven hat went viral—and took the crypto world by storm, spawning its personal Solana-based meme coin, Dogwifhat (WIF).

In true degen trend, WIF is “actually only a canine wif a hat,” per its official website, with no guarantees of revolutionary know-how or precise utility. Regardless of this, Dogwifhat quickly rose to turn out to be one of many largest meme cash by market cap after it first barked in November 2023, whilst its worth has fluctuated wildly over time.

What’s WIF?

Dogwifhat (WIF) is a meme coin constructed on the Solana blockchain, with a neighborhood that always says “the hat stays on” as an indication of assist. It gained reputation as a result of die-hard assist from the crypto neighborhood, led by influencers resembling Ansem—who amassed a large following whereas championing the token.

There actually isn’t far more to it—no high-tech barkitecture right here. Like they mentioned, it’s actually only a canine wif a hat.

WIF’s rise and fall

WIF went stay in November 2023, in keeping with a tweet from its official account, earlier than hitting its all-time excessive of $4.83 and a market cap of $4.58 billion on March 31.

Early Dogwifhat pioneers struggled by the primary month of “HODLing” the token, solely to see substantial positive aspects in subsequent weeks.

In December 2023, the coin noticed a 2,000x value swing in a course of a single month, and one dealer turned $300 of WIF that they bought the day the token launched into $300,000. Whereas one other investor claims to have made tons of of 1000’s over the identical interval changing into a WIF millionaire.

“The canine is carrying a hat, and each time I regarded on the meme it made me giggle,” the WIF millionaire tweeted. “That’s it.”

Nonetheless, whereas it might have prevented burning out like nearly all of meme cash, WIF has displayed important volatility over the course of its existence.

In November 2024, it nearly reclaimed it all-time excessive, touching $4.19 and a market cap of $4.2 billion. By March 2025, nonetheless, the token had plummeted to almost $0.43—a drop of 91% from its all-time excessive.

Who’s the canine wif the hat?

Named Achi (beforehand generally known as Chi-Chi), the canine in query is a Shiba Inu—a well-liked breed of canine inside the crypto neighborhood, having turn out to be the face of the unique meme coin, Dogecoin.

Achi is now about six years outdated, with the viral picture having being taken two months after she was born on September 15, 2018.

Achi at present lives in South Korea together with her homeowners, who personally knitted the cute hat themselves. Initially, her homeowners reacted positively to their canine’s newfound fame, taking to Instagram to announce an NFT public sale of the unique, iconic picture of Achi.

Sadly, this stirred up a bone of competition with the Solana neighborhood because the NFT was being minted on the Ethereum blockchain—relatively than on Solana, the house of the meme coin. This got here after Achi’s dad and mom tried to work with a Solana developer, launching an ACHI token, however the homeowners had been shortly rug-pulled—it’s a dog-eat-dog world. After this ruff expertise, the homeowners turned to an Ethereum-based on-line neighborhood to assist out. Nonetheless, the Solana neighborhood wasn’t completely satisfied and complaints saved flying.

“Please don’t insult [Achi] and us,” the homeowners wrote in a pinned touch upon the Instagram submit, making an attempt to muzzle the haters. “You haven’t any cause accountable us. Please cheer for us.”

On March 18, the long-lasting picture of Achi bought for 1,210.759 ETH (round $4.27 million on the time).

If you happen to’re wanting extra footage of Achi, simply head over to her proprietor’s Instagram account, which has documented her life over the previous six years.

Who created the Dogwifhat meme?

Whereas we all know the canine wif the hat is Achi, the meme originated from skilled Fortnite participant and streamer Issa, who set the image as his Twitter profile image in 2019—to which a consumer replied, “Dogwifhat.”

Extra individuals within the Fortnite scene began altering their profile footage to the long-lasting canine image, with Issa tweeting “dogwifhat taking on.” Quickly gamers, streamers, and organizations from different esports video games like Rocket League received concerned.

Within the meme’s subsequent evolution, individuals started including the canine’s hat to esports organizations, hypebeast manufacturers, and different memes. This was when YouTuber Keemstar received concerned, setting his Twitter profile image to the canine carrying a hat together with his brand on.

Claiming to be the creator of the dogwifhat meme, Issa bought a figurine of Achi by YouTooz. Regardless of this, Issa claims to don’t have any affiliation with the Solana meme coin, nor does he have “dangerous blood” with the venture.

In response, Issa has launched a dogwifhat token on Ethereum—with considerably much less success. In the meantime, the creators of the Solana WIF token stay fully nameless, with no details about him, her, or them on-line.

Canine wif Sphere?

In February 2024, the “Sphere Wif Hat” marketing campaign launched to lift $650,000 to get its furry, beanie-topped namesake plastered on the most important display screen on the earth: the Sphere in Las Vegas. By mid-March, that objective had been reached—however as of March 2025, the canine (and its hat) have but to grace the construction.

All through 2024, followers of the venture raised issues that the 5 organizers of the fundraiser (together with pseudonymous WIF bull Ansem) had gone silent concerning the plans. By June, one of many organizers, Mihiri, promised that if the marketing campaign was cancelled the funds can be returned.

These funds are held in a multi-sig pockets, which requires a number of wallets to signal a transaction to ensure that it to be processed. On the time of writing, it at present holds practically $698,000 within the USDC stablecoin, together with $842 price of Solana (SOL), and a litter of meme cash.

On January 29, Dogwifhat’s official account tweeted “Formally confirmed. Viva hat vegas” alongside a photograph of its furry mascot carrying the Sphere as a hat and holding a telephone with “Q1 2025” displaying on its display screen—main many to consider that the long-promised deal was imminent. However the tweet was rapidly deleted and reposted with out the “formally confirmed” tag line, whereas the Dogwifhat account replied, “Dates as quickly as we’re allowed to share,” a Dogwifhat reply mentioned. “Hat stays on.”

Two days later, a Sphere consultant instructed Decrypt that there isn’t any deal to promote Dogwifhat on its venue—and that there by no means was one.

“We’ve got by no means had a take care of Dogwifhat, and our company on the time solely had one very preliminary dialog early final yr,” a spokesperson for the venue mentioned. “There was and isn’t any plan for Dogwifhat to look on the Exosphere, and we’re distressed they’re utilizing our identify for fraudulent functions.”

In response, the meme coin’s official account tweeted that it was in “ongoing negotiations with numerous events to collaborate on the Sphere advert placement” including that “for the reason that Wif workforce shouldn’t be a company entity, the organizers are collaborating WITH a longtime model to execute this commercial.”

Nonetheless, the Sphere consultant then clarified to Decrypt that “there was and isn’t any plan” for Dogwifhat to look on the venue, including, “At the moment, Sphere solely accepts promoting from exchanges and [about] Bitcoin.”

Whereas the fundraiser’s organizers preserve that the Dogwifhat Sphere advert is on its means, customers of on-chain prediction market MYRIAD (launched by Decrypt’s guardian firm DASTAN) stay unconvinced, with practically 96% believing it received’t occur by the tip of Q1.