Cryptocurrencies now being pooped out by cartoon cat

Nyan Cat, the most annoying internet meme since the Hampster Dance , has spawned its very own Bitcoin clone.

Nyan Cat appeared in 2011 in this video depicting a cat shaped like a pop tart streaming an endless rainbow from its rear parts as it flies through space.

The background music is a Japanese pop song, which may explain its popularity: 100 million YouTube views and counting.

The Nyan Cat brand is potent enough that it's now been adopted to add credence to a new crypto-currency, namely Nyancoin.

A site, nyanco.in, registered by one Charles Feng of Stanford, California, proclaims “Nyancoin is a fun peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world. We have partnered with PRguitarman (Nyancat creator) to create the very first cryptocurrency to be officially licenced in history!”

The rest of the site will look familiar to Bitcoin miners and others familiar with crypto-currency, as it outlines mining tools, wallets, details the algorithm used to mine and offers other crytpocurrency accoutrements.

On the Nyancoin forums there's even a “Nyancoin accepted here” logo, but no indication just how the currency's backers plan to get it taken seriously.

Crytpocurrencies are proliferating at present, probably thanks to BitCoin's burgeoning value and the possibilities presented by an anonymous fungibility. If Nyancoin helps one such effort to succeed, those who feel a currency based on a cat video could yet end up with rainbow-coloured poop on their faces. ®