Cat Coin Toshi Purrs on New Base Blockchain

A token named after Coinbase (COIN) founder and CEO Brian Armstrong’s cat is quickly emerging as a leading meme coin play on the upcoming Base blockchain, chatter among traders on social-media app X, formerly Twitter, shows.

Armstrong revealed his pet’s name in a podcast last year, saying the name was a derivation of pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. His other cat’s name is Mochi.

While it may sound ridiculous, traders are punting big money on toshi (TOSHI) tokens. Traders exchanged $10 million worth of the meme coins on a SushiSwap, a decentralized exchange on the Base network, in the past 24 hours and provided over $1 million in ether liquidity to the trading pair.

Some addresses bought over 8 ether (ETH), valued at $16,000 at current prices, worth of the tokens in a single transaction on Friday morning, data shows.

Such frenzy is likely driven by traders hoping to emulate the rise of dogecoin (DOGE) or shiba inu (SHIB) — two popular tokens themed after the Shiba Inu dog breed – in recent years.

“Meme coins are a hyper-speculative and volatile class of crypto tokens. Generally, these coins lack practical uses compared to more established tokens like ETH,” Jeff Mei, chief operating officer of crypto exchange BTSE, shared in a Telegram message. “That said, each investor has their own risk appetite, and these swings in volatility do offer excellent opportunities to lock in profits as well.”

Base, which is built by crypto exchange Coinbase on OP Stack, went live for developers earlier in July so that they could test applications and blockchain-based products before a planned launch later this year. It is scheduled to officially go live next Wednesday.

But the issuance of viral meme coin bald (BALD) last week saw traders jump in ahead of the official launch in the search for outsized returns, sending over $66 million via a one-way bridge to Base blockchain.