dogwifhat
“It is, quite literally, a dog wif a hat. That was enough for billions.”
This article is about the internet meme. For the original Solana memecoin, see dogwifhat ($WIF).
dogwifhat is an internet meme based on a photograph of a Shiba Inu wearing a soft pink knitted beanie, captioned in the deliberately misspelled style 'dog wif hat.' In late 2023 it inspired dogwifhat (ticker WIF), a Solana-based memecoin that, with no stated utility beyond being 'literally just a dog wif a hat,' grew into one of the largest meme coins by market capitalization.
Origin
The source image was posted on November 17, 2018, by Instagram user @bangdddd, who shared a set of photographs of their Shiba Inu, Achi (reportedly based in Korea), wearing a pink woven beanie. The meme's name was coined on November 6, 2019, when professional Fortnite player 'issa' set the third photo as his Twitter profile picture and Twitter user @Vapurly commented 'Dogwifhat,' a label that stuck.
Spread
The image went viral in late 2019 as Fortnite, Rocket League, and other esports players and organizations adopted it as a profile-picture trend, often editing team logos onto the hat, spawning hashtags like #dogwifhat and #dogwifhatgang. Its second, larger wave came with the crypto memecoin: WIF launched on Solana in late 2023 and surged through early 2024. Momentum peaked in March 2024 around its Binance listing and a viral moment when the original Achi photo sold as an Ethereum NFT for 1,210.759 ETH (about $4.3 million) on March 18, 2024, at the time the most expensive meme NFT ever, narrowly surpassing the original Doge NFT.
Legacy
dogwifhat became a flagship of the 2023-2024 Solana memecoin boom, demonstrating how a years-old meme image could be financialized into a multi-billion-dollar token built purely on community and culture rather than utility. The token's anonymous creators and grassroots promotion, including a community-funded campaign to display WIF on the Las Vegas Sphere, made it a symbol of 'degen' meme-coin culture. The original pink beanie itself was later auctioned, selling for around $800,000.
The Chain Trail
The OG token for this meme is dogwifhat ($WIF) on Solana, launched 2023-11.
Key facts
- The original photo of the Shiba Inu Achi in a pink knit beanie was posted November 17, 2018, by Instagram user @bangdddd.
- The name 'Dogwifhat' was coined November 6, 2019, by Twitter user @Vapurly after Fortnite player 'issa' used the image as a profile picture.
- The image first went viral in late 2019 as an esports profile-picture trend (#dogwifhat, #dogwifhatgang).
- The WIF memecoin launched on Solana in late 2023 (cited as November-December 2023).
- WIF has no claimed utility, its site describes it as 'literally just a dog wif a hat.'
- WIF was listed on Binance in March 2024.
- The original Achi photo sold as an Ethereum NFT for 1,210.759 ETH (~$4.3 million) on March 18, 2024.
- The physical pink beanie later sold at auction for roughly $800,000.
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The tokens that claim dogwifhat
Every token we can tie to this meme, and which contract appeared first. The original is marked OG; the rest arrived to ride the name.
| # | Coin | Price | 24h | Market Cap | Liquidity | Launched |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  dogwifhat $WIF | $0.15 | -1.56% | $146.04M | $4.04M | Nov 20, 2023 |
Combined live market cap for dogwifhat: $146.04M across 1 coin. Market data is live from DexScreener; figures are not investment advice.
The on-chain receipts for $WIF (the OG contract), pulled straight from the chain.
On-chain report
via helius · updated 23h agoHeld by the top 10 wallets.
- 1. 51yZ…QU5j13.72%
- 2. 3gd3…kW2u8.19%
- 3. 9WzD…AWWM5.01%
- 4. 4xLp…9Qdg4.69%
- 5. CK8i…R3qQ3.33%
- 6. CBEA…bkVG2.54%
- 7. 5NUd…1VMe2.09%
- 8. AVPK…qHg52.04%
- 9. 5Q54…e4j11.37%
- 10. 3B7X…ei9z1.34%
- Top 10 wallets hold 44.3% of supply — moderately concentrated.
- Deployment predates the scanned history — earliest date is a lower bound.
Facts pulled directly from the chain via Solscan-grade data. Not financial advice.
The deep investigation. Deployer and wallet maps, contract migrations, bundles, supply concentration, and every project that falsely claimed to be first, with archived sources and a full chronological record.
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