Dogecoin's Surge a Result of a Elon Musk-DogeDay-Crypto Popu | Blockchain Progress
Dogecoin's Surge a Result of a Elon Musk-DogeDay-Crypto Popularity Mix
The world's most popular meme coin, dogecoin (DOGE), continues to baffle the Cryptosphere and the spheres beyond it, with many seeing its recent massive surge as a result of a combination of elements, including: Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, DogeDay, Coinbase, increased crypto popularity, and a quick buck chase.
"There’s a tribe of investors, many of them Millennials, who see it as a cause, a movement. ... Dogecoin is symptomatic of the zeitgeist happening before our very eyes," Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev told Bloomberg.
At the time of writing, DOGE - the only green coin in the top 50 today - surged last Friday, entering the top 10 list by market capitalization, and quickly surpassing the first five coins on its way. At 7:27 UTC today, it's sitting on the 5th spot.
Its price is currently USD 0.42, after it appreciated 14.5% in a day, 107.5% since Friday, and 483% in a week. Overall, the price is up 629% in a single month and a whopping 20,940% in a year.
Per the 24-hour trading volume (USD 32bn), DOGE is in the 4th place, behind tether (USDT), bitcoin (BTC), and ethereum (ETH), respectively.
Investor Dan Tapiero wondered how DOGE "could be worth more than what ethereum was worth just 6 months ago." On November 1, 2020, ETH's market capitalization was USD 43.8bn. DOGE's current cap is USD 55.9bn.
Many, like Qiao Wang of the DeFi Alliance, find the reason for the rally to be a combination of factors:
Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone finds that the recent rally is exemplary of retail’s involvement in crypto markets, and a result of the "perfect storm" of "pandemic lock-ups, lots of cash in the system, and investors’ ability to speculate around the clock" in a market that's "the easiest to access in history."
Similarly, per Fast Company, a reason DOGE is surging this year may be that cryptos in general are becoming more popular with the "everyday" investor, while the Coinbase direct listing added legitimacy to the assets. Also, this mainstream media outlet labeled dogecoin as "the cute bitcoin cryptocurrency rival." Some Cryptoverse residents also argued that DOGE's fundamentals "have always been, "Bitcoin, except it's fun.""
As for why it surged on Friday, many also point to Elon Musk’s latest tweet, that said "Doge Barking at the Moon."
Many seem to agree that the social media force is a major part of the rally. The asset has little intrinsic value but is boosted by investors' fear of missing out (FOMO), with the main driver behind DOGE's popularity being its online communities, coupled with business magnates' support, like Musk, said Michael Kamerman, CEO of trading platform Skilling.
In the past week, the dogecoin subreddit on the Reddit platform got more than 205,000 new subscribers and now has 1.45m of them. On Twitter, Dogecoin has almost 879,000 followers.
Additionally, Mark Cuban recently reported that Dallas-based NBA team Mavericks had seen a surge in sales in DOGE.
“I have no idea what this DOGE rally means,” Cuban told CNBC last week. “But I do know that supply and demand is undefeated. So it will find its level.”
Furthermore, according to Bloomberg, Dogecoin’s sprint is propelled by the DogeDay hashtag trending on Twitter, with many, including Musk, pushing for record highs on April 20 (which is also a day celebrating cannabis use).
Jeff Dorman, Chief Investment Officer of US-based investment management firm Arca, found that, spurred somewhat by Musk’s tweets, DOGE has become the 2nd most popular cryptocurrency on Twitter, accounting for 23.2% of total crypto tweets.
He described the "bitcoin-less rally" as a result of a trader likely logging into the Robinhood app, seeing huge outsized gains in DOGE, "and immediately snap buying the only other tokens from the limited pool of assets available on the Robinhood app — causing large gains in LTC, BSV, BCH and ETC as well."
