Ghibli-inspired memecoins flood the market – What are they and their obsession?

Almost everyone on the internet has used or seen a Ghibli portrait today, the Japanese animation studio-style image that Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Ripple Labs executives, and others have shared since ChatGPT launched its latest update.

On Tuesday, OpenAI introduced image generation capabilities to its GPT-4o model, allowing users to create AI-generated visuals directly within ChatGPT. 

Almost immediately, social media platforms were flooded with artwork mimicking the aesthetic of Studio Ghibli, the animation powerhouse behind films such as Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. 

Crypto KOLs using Ghilbi-images 

Among the notable names that jumped into the Ghilbi-inspired image train are billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who have shared AI-generated portraits of themselves in the Ghibli style. 

X CEO Musk, who has previously influenced memecoin markets of Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) through his posts, shared a Ghilbi-fied version of a picture in the popular 1994 musical cartoon film The Lion King, which shows Rafiki the mandrill holding up Mufasa.

Theme of the day pic.twitter.com/2ioG0StAxL

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2025

Some of the most widely shared images on social media include a reimagining of former US President Donald Trump’s February 28 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Hide the Pain Harold meme shared by trading platform Crypto.com, and an AI-generated rendering of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

What a G(hibli) Morning. pic.twitter.com/waNYrECGKf

— Crypto.com (@cryptocom) March 27, 2025

Ripple executives David Schwartz and Brad Garlinghouse also posted their Ghibli-style anime portraits, where the former asked his followers if “he did it right.”

Am I doing this right? pic.twitter.com/OltPmOc6Jt

— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) March 26, 2025

Neither Musk nor Altman made direct references to any Ghibli-themed cryptocurrency, but the viral trend has birthed an expected surge in memecoins. The most prominent among them, Ghiblification (GHIBLI), has exponentially risen in valuation since it was launched on March 26. 

According to data from DEX Screener, GHIBLI reached a market capitalization of $20.8 million just 19 hours after going live. The memecoin is now changing hands at $0.01788, a whopping 30,382% uptick in the last 24 hours.

DEX Screener also shows that the memecoin recorded nearly $77 million in trading volumes within the first 24 hours of going live from over 250,000 individual trades. The token’s liquidity pool holds just over $330,000 worth of SOL, indicating the maximum amount GHIBLI holders can exchange their holdings for, pending price declines.

At least 20 other Ghibli-related tokens have emerged in the past 24 hours, each seeking to capitalize on the trend. Still, several members of the crypto community are convinced the coins will all plummet when the “fun element” of the images wears off.

“Praying the memecoin runs to $100M to bring some hope into these markets. Severely needed,” said one crypto trader on X.

Did OpenAI violate copyright laws in training ChatGPT? 

Ghibli-style AI art may have given the internet reasons to laugh, but it has also raised concerns about OpenAI’s data practices. Like many of its AI competitors, the company has not disclosed the specific datasets used to train its models. 

Still, users are questioning the accuracy with which its system easily replicates Ghibli’s hand-drawn aesthetic in a matter of minutes. They believe OpenAI may have trained its model on copyrighted content without permission.

An OpenAI spokesperson has released a statement to address these allegations, explaining that the company simply wants to provide users with creative freedom and has employed restrictive policies to prevent them from misusing the product.

“We continue to prevent generations in the style of individual living artists, but we do permit more studio styles, which people have used to generate and share some truly delightful and inspired original fan creations,” the spokesperson wrote. “We’re always learning from real-world use and feedback, and we’ll keep refining our policies as we go.”

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