柴犬「かぼす」死ぬ　ドージコインのアイコンモデル

【東京ＡＦＰ＝時事】実業家のイーロン・マスク氏が気に入っていることで知られる仮想通貨ドージコインのアイコンのモデルで、インターネットのミームにもなっていた柴犬の「かぼす」が２４日に死んだと飼い主が明らかにした。（写真は、今年３月、かぼすと共に公園を訪れた佐藤敦子さん）
　佐藤敦子さんは自身のブログで、「私になでられながら眠るようにそっと逝きました」と明かし、かぼすのファンからの長年の愛情に対して謝意を表すとともに、「かぼちゃんは世界一幸せな犬だったと思います。そして私は世界一幸せな飼い主でした」とつづっている。
　保護犬だったため、正確な誕生日は分からないが、佐藤さんは昨年１１月、かぼすの１８歳の誕生日を祝っていた。
　かぼすは、ブリーダーの廃業後、殺処分される可能性もあった中で引き取られた。２年後の２０１０年、佐藤さんはソファの上で前足を組んでいるかぼすの写真を撮り、ブログに投稿。
　ふわふわの柴犬の流し目の画像は、掲示板サイト「レディット」に広がり、広告などにも使用されるミームとなった。マスク氏も昨年、ツイッター（現Ｘ）のアイコンを一時、かぼすの顔に変えていた。
　画像は後に非代替性トークン（ＮＦＴ）を利用したデジタルアート作品となり、４００万ドル（約６億３０００万円）で売却された。２人のソフトウエア・エンジニアがジョークで始めたドージコインは現在、時価総額２３０億ドル（約３兆６０００億円）で、世界で８番目に価値のある暗号通貨となっている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/05/27-16:48）

The Japanese dog whose photo inspired a generation of oddball online jokes and the $23-billion Dogecoin cryptocurrency beloved by Elon Musk died on Friday, her owner said.
She quietly passed away as if asleep while I caressed her, Atsuko Sato wrote on her blog, thanking the fans of her shiba inu called Kabosu -- the face of the Doge meme.
I think Kabo-chan was the happiest dog in the world. And I was the happiest owner, Sato wrote.
As a rescue dog, Kabosu's real birthday was unknown but Sato estimated her age at 18, past the average lifespan for a shiba inu, with her birthday celebrated in November.
In 2010, two years after adopting Kabosu from a puppy mill where she would otherwise have been put down, Sato took a picture of her pet crossing her paws on the sofa.
She posted that image -- with the fluffy shiba inu giving the camera a beguiling look -- on her blog, from where it spread to online forum Reddit and became a meme that bounced from college bedrooms to office e-mail chains.
The memes typically used goofy broken English to reveal the inner thoughts of Kabosu and other shiba inu doge -- pronounced like pizza dough but with a j at the end.
The picture also later became an NFT digital artwork that sold for $4 million and inspired Dogecoin, which was started as a joke by two software engineers and is now the eighth-most valuable cryptocurrency with a market capitalisation of $23 billion.
- 'Unbelievable' events -
Dogecoin has been backed by hip-hop star Snoop Dogg, Shark Tank entrepreneur Mark Cuban and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons.
But its most keen supporter is probably the billionaire Musk, who jokes about the currency on X -- sending its value soaring -- and hails it as the people's crypto.
Dogecoin has also inspired a plethora of other cheap and highly volatile memecoins, including spin-off Shiba Inu and others based on dogs, cats or Donald Trump.
Kabosu fell ill with leukaemia and liver disease in late 2022, and Sato said in a recent interview with AFP in her home of Sakura, east of Tokyo, that the invisible power of prayers from fans worldwide helped her pull through.
The 62-year-old Sato said she had become so used to unbelievable events that, when Tesla boss Musk changed the icon for Twitter, now X, to Kabosu's face last year, she wasn't even that surprised.
In the last few years I've been able to connect the online version of Kabosu, all these unexpected things seen from a distance, with our real lives, she told AFP.
A $100,000 statue of Kabosu and her sofa crowdfunded by Own The Doge, a crypto organisation dedicated to the meme, was unveiled in a park in Sakura in November last year.
Sato and Own The Doge have also donated large sums to international charities, including more than $1 million to Save the Children. The NGO says it is the single largest crypto contribution it has ever received.
The Doge is the most popular dog of the modern era, said Tridog, a pseudonymous member of Own The Doge, describing Kabosu as the Mona Lisa of the internet.