Smoking Inu: one cigarette, two letters and competing camps

At 05:12, a cigarette enters the feed

On October 12 at 05:12 Paris time, Vlad Tenev posts on X that he is hearing about more AI researchers taking up smoking. He connects the anecdote with the supposed approach of superintelligence. There is no contract address or launch announcement in his message. For the traders reading it, however, it already offers an image: a cigarette in the middle of the artificial-intelligence race. [1]

In the smoking Inu banner, that image has acquired a character. A shiba sits before blue screens displaying digital brains. It holds a cigarette, with books about AI research and superintelligence stacked nearby. Tenev’s post occupies a large panel in the centre of the scene. The artwork distributed through the token listing makes the connection between the joke and the dog explicit. It is promotional illustration, not a photograph of a laboratory. [3]

The author matters as much as the words. Tenev is Robinhood’s co-founder and chief executive, as well as Harmonic’s co-founder and executive chairman. Harmonic is an AI company. Those overlapping roles give traders on Robinhood chain an immediately usable connection. They do not turn that use into an endorsement of the token: the original post does not mention smoking Inu. [1] [2]

The joke has already left its author’s hands

Beneath the post, Tyler Palmer compares San Francisco cigarette sales to an indicator of AGI activity, drawing an analogy with pizza orders associated with the Pentagon. Ash answers with a pun turning artificial-intelligence researchers into “Artificial Inu”. Neither response establishes a trend inside laboratories. They show readers reshaping the sentence: a purported habit becomes an indicator, then a meme name. [4] [5]

At 05:38, 黎明同学 quotes Tenev’s post and publishes the smoking Inu address. Tols makes the same connection at 05:40. Readers now have more than a funny image: they have a contract to pass around. The principal pair listed by DEX Screener is dated 05:15:28, shortly after the initial message. That proximity and those quote-posts document the topic’s rapid adoption; they do not identify the token’s creator or the purchases behind its rising valuation. [3] [6] [7]

Thewolfofpumpfun then supplies an explanation of his own: he says researchers are smoking because they think AI will soon solve cancer. He combines the story, the ticker and Vlad’s post into a trading argument, alongside the exact contract. That medical explanation does not appear in Tenev’s message and is not established by the thread reviewed. It is the trader’s addition to the narrative, showing how quickly a short sentence acquires a more elaborate story. [1] [8]

A smoking dog, and a position to claim

At 06:00, GEM DETECTER says he has taken a gamble on smoking Inu. He describes a Pons launch and a token built around Tenev’s post. His argument goes beyond the dog: he invokes a precedent involving the AI ticker on Robinhood and the idea that runners are rare on Pons. Jimmy Ashcot replies that he has heard that last claim several times already. It is a perception circulating among participants, not an established platform statistic. [9] [10]

After the peak reported to the newsroom, GEM DETECTER returns at 07:11 to the shift from AI to SI terminology. He connects it with Trump and suggests traders will adapt. The thread shows an attempt to attach smoking Inu to an existing ticker story; it does not establish his claims about earlier valuations or an official decision to rename AI. [11]

The shift is revealing: the cigarette provides visual novelty, while the letters SI evoke superintelligence. Smoking Inu can therefore be presented as another dog or as a fresh incarnation of an established conversation. In one reply, Block Ventis chooses the first reading and appeals to the potential of Inu narratives. That is his enthusiasm, not a market rule. [14]

Two letters do not identify one community

Competition emerges early. At 05:59, Moo quotes the same Tenev sentence but supplies two addresses: a token named superintelligence and the smoking Inu contract covered here. One message can fuel several assets. Finding Vlad’s quote or the SI ticker is therefore insufficient to identify the token an account is promoting. [12]

At 08:11, Trip Trippman replies in GEM DETECTER’s thread that another SI already exists on Robinhood, pointing to @SI_ShibaInu. He criticises the multiplication of tokens for encouraging traders to compete against each other. His wallet claims are not verified here, but his response documents disagreement over the space available for another SI. This exchange comes after the reported ATH and cannot explain that peak. [13]

Smoking Inu’s distinctive feature lies in that gap. Tenev supplies an open-ended sentence; early relays give it an address; others immediately try to attach it to a legacy or defend a competitor. The shiba at its screens makes the whole story easy to recognise, but the conversation is more specific than the image: people are choosing what the same words should mean, and which contract to circulate.

Sources

Sources consulted on 12 October 2026. Figures reflect the cited snapshots and are not updated live.

1. Vlad Tenev — message sur les chercheurs en IA et la cigarette, 12 octobre 2026
2. Robinhood — biographie officielle de Vlad Tenev et fonctions chez Harmonic
3. DEX Screener — paire Robinhood, contrat et visuels de smoking Inu
4. Tyler Palmer — cigarette et indicateurs d’activité, réponse à Tenev
5. Ash — jeu de mots sur Artificial Inu, réponse à Tenev
6. 黎明同学 — contrat smoking Inu et citation de Tenev, 12 octobre
7. Tols — contrat smoking Inu et citation de Tenev, 12 octobre
8. Thewolfofpumpfun — interprétation du meme et contrat exact
9. GEM DETECTER — récit du lancement sur Pons, 12 octobre à 6 h
10. Jimmy Ashcot — réponse sur la rareté des runners Pons
11. GEM DETECTER — rapprochement entre les tickers AI et SI
12. Moo — deux contrats tirés du même message de Tenev
13. Trip Trippman — concurrence avec un SI préexistant, réponse à GEM DETECTER
14. Block Ventis — lecture du token à travers les memes Inu