Bitcoin Maneki Neko 招き猫
A lucky cat made around early Bitcoin culture. This is the root of the NEKO lore.
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From the Bitcoin culture archive
NEKO — Bitcoin's Forgotten Cat
NEKO is a Maneki-neko-style lucky cat tied to the early BitcoinTalk era. Long before animal tokens became their own market category, the cat appeared around Bitcoin culture as a piece of lucky-cat artwork built around the Bitcoin symbol.
Before DOGE. Before PEPE. Before “animal coins.” There was already a Bitcoin cat.
# Origin
The historical trail points back to a BitcoinTalk thread from 2010, preserved through the Internet Archive. Surviving references identify the post as “Bitcoin Maneki Neko 招き猫”, with the artwork attributed to early BitcoinTalk user bitboy.
The idea was simple: take the Japanese lucky cat — a symbol associated with welcoming fortune and customers — and make a Bitcoin version for the newborn digital-money culture. It appeared in the same era when Bitcoin graphics, buttons, merchant images and community-made logos were still being invented in public.
Primary trail: BitcoinTalk topic #1756
Open the archived 2010-era thread ↗
# Why a lucky cat?
Maneki-neko literally means “beckoning cat.” The figure is traditionally used as a charm for luck, prosperity and business. That made it almost absurdly compatible with early Bitcoin merchant culture.
NEKO was not designed decades later to imitate a crypto trend. The cat existed while Bitcoin itself was still building its visual language.
“This cat was literally made to make Bitcoin lucky.” — the NEKO thesis
# Timeline
2009Bitcoin launches. Its visual identity is still being formed by a tiny online community.
2010The Bitcoin lucky-cat artwork appears in the BitcoinTalk era. The thread survives through archival copies.
2013Dogecoin arrives, helping establish animal imagery as part of crypto culture.
2020sAnimal memes become an enormous crypto category, while the old Bitcoin cat remains mostly buried in forum history.
NOWNEKO returns as a lore-first meme paired with Bitcoin exposure through cbBTC.
# The pair that makes sense
MEME$NEKO
/
₿
PAIR ASSETcbBTC
PONS supports launches quoted against assets including cbBTC. For a meme whose entire history is tied to Bitcoin, the project narrative is deliberately literal: the Bitcoin cat, paired with Bitcoin.
Contract address: TBA · Launch venue: PONS ↗
# Archive board
A forum-style reconstruction of the lore trail. Links below go to real sources; the short commentary is written for this site.
/btc/ — Bitcoin culture archive [4 posts]
>>1756
So the cat wasn't created after meme coins. It came from Bitcoin itself.
>>2009
That is the entire point. The lore predates the market category that later made animal coins famous.
>>2013
$NEKO / cbBTC.
The forgotten Bitcoin cat goes back to Bitcoin.
# Sources & links
- Internet Archive — archived BitcoinTalk topic #1756The central historical source for the lucky-cat lore.
- BitcoinTalk — original topic URLThe original forum location, where available.
- PONS launchpadLaunch platform supporting token pairs including cbBTC.
- @nekoonbtc on XOfficial project social account.
THE ONE-LINE LORE
Bitcoin had a cat before crypto had cat coins.
$NEKO · the forgotten lucky cat of Bitcoin.