Has the World’s Richest Man Collaborated with a Leading Cryptocurrency Founder to Create a Meme Cryptocurrency? Here’s what the internet says.

What happened: A report from observer guru made the case linking the creation of Shiba Inu SHIB/USD to Tesla Inc TSLA chairman Elon Musk and ether ETH/USD co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

On April 30, 2019, Musk tweeted a one-word post that read “Ethereum.” The tweet received a slew of replies, including one from Buterin, who invited Musk to Devcon in October 2019. Musk later responded with “What should be developed on Ethereum?”.

These tweets have since been deleted.

Shiba Inu was started in August 2020 with founder Ryoshi publishing a medium post entitled “Hail to the SHIBA! (an experiment in decentralization).”

Among the details from the post was Ryoshi, who said he met a friend at Devcon Osaka the previous year. Ryoshi said the friend “has some clout in the (crypto) space.” Ryoshi also highlighted the friend’s wealth.

“He’s a successful businessman, so 10 ETH isn’t for him.”

A May 2021 Ryoshi blog post highlighted that despite being the founders of the Shiba Inu coin, they held 0 SHIB tokens.

“But the reality to date is that I own 0 SHIB. Why? Well if I do then I can’t be who I am anymore and now I know I have a role to play.”

Musk confirmed in October 2021 that he owned 0 Shiba Inu.

The wording in post also led some to believe it was Musk, following similar wording he had previously used.

“Usually when we see a ‘project’ there is a key CEO and an engineer and a roadmap. And so one can rabble-rouse the success or failure in one’s life and the results of token purchases and make rabble ‘accountable’ in one’s mind.”

Related link: Elon Musk’s 7 most tweeted topics: How do Tesla, SpaceX, Bitcoin and Dogecoin rank?

Why it matters: Musk is known for tweeting about several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin BTC/USD and Dogecoins