Vitalik Buterin Clarifies Key Fact About “His Pet Dog” That Inspired New Coins

In a recent discussion on the X social media platform, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explained the meaning of the name of the pet dog that is believed to be his. He did not confirm this fact of owning it, though.

Vitaliks dog is believed to be named either Misha (a Russian name, analogue of Michael) or MICHI – a Chinese for to “squint” – which seems to be similar to it phonetically.

When asked about the MICHI dog and whether it belongs to him, Vitalik responded that this name seems to be self-explanatory and added hieroglyphs to show how it should be spelled in the original. However, he added: “Not sure what dog that is.”

As for explaining what the name means, Vitalik tweeted: “眯吃 it takes naps and it eats.”

Not sure whose dog that is, but the name seems self-explanatory？

眯吃

it takes naps and it eats

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 19, 2024

Some sources on the Internet claim that in the documentary titled “Vitalik. An Ethereum History”, Buterin revealed the name of his pet dog. ChatGPT allegedly also confirmed that Buterins dog is called “Michi”. However, some got this name wrong and say that it is Misha, perhaps taking into accounts the Russian roots of Vitalik.

There are now a few coins titled MICHI (one of them has a SOL ticker suggesting the blockchain it was created on was Ethereum‘s rival Solana). And several coins with a MISHA ticker. However, taking into account Vitalik’s response about the dog, this may be just a prank in an attempt to throw a bunch of new meme coins to the market and capitalize on them.

Earlier this year, according to various sources, Vitalik Buterin admitted that his favorite dog breed is the Japanese Kabo-chan.