Dogs have dominated the Meme world for over a decade, and recently, cats have suddenly started "attacking".

Written by: Non-small Account

If you draw a zoo map of the Meme world in the crypto space, you will find an interesting phenomenon: dogs are probably the most successful animals here.

DOGE, SHIB, FLOKI, BONK... From the first Shiba Inu to the later whole "dog family," for the past decade or so, dogs have almost become the most recognizable animal symbol in the Meme world. For many people, the first time they hear about Meme, what pops into their mind might not be a technical concept, but rather a Shiba Inu's face.

However, recently, things seem to be getting interesting.

Because there are more and more cats.

Since August, from Cash Cat on Robinhood Chain to BASECAT, which suddenly sparked a lot of discussion on Base, and then CATE, which re-entered the spotlight on Solana, cat-themed Memes have started to appear frequently in market news and community discussions.

On August 6th, Cash Cat gained massive attention shortly after its launch on Robinhood. CoinDesk previously reported that Cash Cat rose about 120% in just a week, at which point the TVL on Robinhood Chain had reached approximately $774 million, and Cash Cat had become one of the most talked-about Memes on this new chain.

A few days later, another cat arrived.

On August 17th, BASECAT quickly became popular on Base Chain. Public data showed that shortly after its launch, its market value exceeded $20 million at one point, with a 24-hour increase reaching about 20 times. However, at the same time, its liquidity scale was significantly lower than its market value, and its price fluctuations were very volatile.

By August 24th, market media even started discussing BASECAT, BICAT, and CATE together, calling them "three cats worth paying attention to recently."

Looking at each cat alone, they seem to be just new Memes. But when connecting these news items together, things begin to look a bit different.

A question starts to emerge: have the dog-themed Memes been hot for so many years that cats are finally starting to come together?

If this story continues to develop, the Meme world may see a new storyline that has a strong internet flavor: the dog vs. cat battle.

Why has the Meme world always been "the domain of dogs"?

To understand why "there are more cats now" is worth paying attention to today, we first need to take a look at how strong dogs really are.

When DOGE appeared in 2013, no one probably expected that a picture of a Shiba Inu would eventually become one of the most famous cultural symbols in the crypto world.

The real power of DOGE lies not only in the market influence it has achieved but also in the fact that it almost created a replicable template: one animal, one internet meme, one community, and a lot of secondary creations.

Then, this template began to replicate continuously.

We had SHIB, FLOKI, BONK, and BABYDOGE. Eventually, people didn't even need to relearn "what Dogecoin is." Just seeing a Shiba Inu, a dog head, or an exaggerated expression, many people automatically know: this is a Meme.

This is a very strong cultural asset.

If we were to write a "history of animals" from the perspective of the Meme world over the past decade, DOGE would resemble the person who first established the dynasty. Later, SHIB expanded this dynasty, and BONK brought dogs to Solana. Different chains, different communities, different play styles, but the animal hasn't changed much; it's still dogs.

Thus, a strange thing slowly formed: in the real world, cats and dogs have always been the two top-flowing pets; but in the crypto Meme world, dogs have been significantly stronger for a long time.

This is actually quite abnormal.

Because when we look at internet Meme culture, cats are by no means weak. In fact, it's fair to say that the internet might originally have been a cat's domain.

Grumpy Cat, Nyan Cat, Keyboard Cat, LOLcats, and even today’s daily new cat memes on TikTok, X, Xiaohongshu, and Instagram; cats rolling their eyes, cats being dazed, cats being shocked, cats hiding in corners peeking, and cats inexplicably slapping others, cats might just be one of the animals that are best at providing "expressions" in internet history.

But intriguingly, despite cats winning on the internet for many years, they haven’t completely taken over the crypto Meme.

So what’s truly worth observing today is not just that a few cats have appeared recently but that one of the strongest Meme animals on the internet is beginning to enter a world that has long been dominated by dogs.

The story becomes interesting all of a sudden.

Recently, these cats are emerging from different places

One particularly noteworthy aspect of this wave of cat-themed Memes is that they are not centralized on one chain.

Cash Cat appears on Robinhood Chain, BASECAT on Base, and CATE is active on Solana. Earlier, there were already different types of cat-themed projects such as MEW, POPCAT, MOG, and Simon’s Cat in the market.

In other words, what we are observing recently is not just a single cat suddenly gaining attention, but rather that cats are starting to appear in different ecosystems.

The story of Cash Cat is especially filled with internet flavor.

Cash Cat is not an official project issued by Robinhood, but it borrowed a rather dramatic backstory from the early days of Robinhood's startup. Before officially naming itself, Robinhood had considered using the name Cash Cat. Later, the company went with Robinhood, and Cash Cat did not become the company name. Many years later, the community reinvented this abandoned name into a Meme cat, even describing it as "a fan story with a ticker."

This is very Meme.

Not because it solves any real problem, but precisely because this story is quirky, simple, and easy to narrate.

On the other hand, BASECAT's setup is more straightforward: a blue hard hat, a cat, and Base Chain, without any complex background. After starting trading on August 15th, it quickly gained attention, with its market value rising from less than $1 million to over $20 million in no time.

The most noteworthy aspect is not the numbers themselves but that when a cat starts to gain attention, people will start to look for where the next cat is.

This is a typical dissemination mechanism of the Meme market.

If a frog becomes popular, many frogs will appear; if a dog becomes popular, many dogs will emerge; if an AI Meme becomes popular, everything can be embellished with AI in the following days.

When cats begin to appear in succession, the market can easily shift from "what is this project about" to "isn't it getting a bit hot for cats lately?".

And once it shifts from a specific project to a particular species, the situation becomes entirely different. Because the former is a coin, while the latter is a topic.

The most interesting cat might come from the story of DOGE

Among the recent cat stories, the most entertaining might not be which one rose the most, but CATE. Because within this story, DOGE appeared directly.

Kabosumama, the owner of Kabosu, the prototype Shiba Inu of DOGE, previously shared a photo of a rescued kitten. The cat's name did not officially become a market project name, but the community quickly began to play with the meme: DOG plus E equals DOGE, so what about CAT plus E? The answer is CATE.

Thus, a cat grew out of the cultural story of DOGE.

Subsequent related communities began to create a large amount of secondary creations and disseminate them around CATE. After entering August, this topic continued to persist.

Viewed in isolation, this is somewhat absurd. But precisely because it is absurd, it is especially Meme.

More importantly, it provides a very playful symbol: cats are not appearing outside the dog world; cats have even run into the story of DOGE.

If we were to personify the entire Meme world, the picture would probably look like this: DOGE sitting on the throne, with SHIB, FLOKI, and BONK sitting below. Suddenly, there is a sound at the door, everyone looks back to see MEW standing there, POPCAT is here, MOG has arrived, Cash Cat is here, and BASECAT has come too. In the end, a CATE runs out from DOGE's own house.

This is quite awkward.

And let’s not forget, there has been a very prophetic name in the market for a long time: MEW, cat in a dog's world, a cat living in a dog's world.

Looking back, this was just a clever Meme name. But now, upon revisiting it, it seems to be more like a trailer for the entire story.

Because in the past, the crypto Meme world indeed resembled a dog's world.

Now the question has turned into: what if there are more and more cats?

The cat vs. dog battle might be more interesting than "who is the next cat?"

The most important thing about Memes has never been the animal itself but whether people are willing to play together.

Why are cats inherently suitable for forming a larger topic with dogs? Because these might be two camps in the world that need the least explanation: cat people and dog people.

You don’t even need to understand blockchain to know what these two sides mean.

Cat lovers can say that the internet originally belonged to cats. Dog lovers can say, but the Meme world was opened by DOGE.

Dog proponents can showcase DOGE, SHIB, FLOKI, and BONK, while cat proponents can present MEW, POPCAT, MOG, CAT, CATE, CASHCAT, and BASECAT.

Suddenly, previously unrelated projects can be placed in the same image by internet users. A group of dogs on the left, a group of cats on the right, with a title of only four characters: the cat vs. dog battle.

This is precisely the way Memes are best at spreading. No need for complex logic; a picture is enough to understand.

In the future, if the cat-themed ecosystem becomes more active, the community could humorously say, "the cat camp is leading today"; the dog camp regaining attention might prompt someone to say, "the dog team is starting to counterattack"; DOGE has news, and it could be said, "big brother is back"; if a cat suddenly goes viral, it can also be said, "the cat team has sent a newcomer again."

These are certainly just expressions of internet culture, but they are much more sustainable content than merely discussing the price of a particular token. Because prices change every day, while camps do not.

Humans inherently like to take sides. Apple or Android, Coca-Cola or Pepsi, cats or dogs. And Memes love to amplify these already existing cultural differences infinitely.

That is also why what is truly worth paying attention to may not be which popular cat will come next but whether the market will officially start comparing cat-themed Memes with dog-themed Memes.

If the media begins to write about Cat Coins versus Dog Coins, if the community starts tracking the overall performance of cat and dog themes, if more and more memes, short videos, and AI images start appearing around the two camps, and if expressions like "Cat Season" and "Cat vs. Dog" become more frequent, then a bigger Meme topic than individual projects may slowly take shape.

This is what makes the "cat vs. dog battle" truly interesting.

Of course, it's clearly still too early to say that cats will replace dogs.

DOGE remains one of the most recognizable symbols in the entire Meme culture. Dog-themed projects like SHIB, BONK, and FLOKI have already established a solid community foundation. The recent cat-themed projects also exhibit strong volatility, with some projects having limited liquidity and rapid changes in popularity.

So, what this article truly wants to discuss is not who will rise or fall, but a more intriguing internet phenomenon: dogs have been popular in the crypto Meme world for more than a decade, and by the summer of 2026, more and more cats are starting to emerge from Robinhood Chain, Base, Solana, and various corners of different communities.

In the past, we saw one cat, then another cat, and yet another cat.

But if one day everyone suddenly realizes that this is not just a matter of a few cats, but that cats and dogs are finally being placed at the same table, then the next grand internet spectacle suitable for the whole network to play with memes may already have a name: the cat vs. dog battle.