What started off as a parody cryptocurrency is seeing a 14,000% rise in value this year. Dogecoin now overtakes Elon Musk’s SpaceX market cap.
In recent events, Dogecoin, a total joke of a cryptocurrency actually peaked at US$0.79 (RM3.24) a coin with a market cap of US$78 billion (RM320 billion). To put that into perspective, that’s bigger than companies like Honda Motors, Activision Blizzard and Dell. They also overtook SpaceX, which is lead by Elon Musk, one of Doge’s biggest supporters. However, the question you might be having is – What is Dogecoin? Invented by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in December of 2013, it takes after a cult internet meme and good boy, Shiba Inu, the “Doge” dog.
It was intended to satirise bitcoin, which is the golden grade of crypto. Well, kids, the joke’s over. Dogecoin is now a top-10 cryptocurrency and a serious money chip in the market and its due to a few reasons.
Dogecoin: Everything you need to know about Elon Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency
Elon Musk has been consistently talking about Dogecoin and in a recent interview with TMZ he was asked “Will Dogecoin become the next currency?” he replied, “I think it should be the vote of the people. There is a good chance that crypto will be the future. But we don’t know which one it’s going to be, maybe it will be multiple. However, people shouldn’t invest their life savings in cryptocurrencies. That’s unwise considering it’s all about speculation.” Commenting on Dogecoin’s rise, he said “The currency that was invented as a joke, becomes the real currency. And, to the moon”.
On the other hand, Mark Cuban tweeted over the weekend “If interest rates skyrocket or the amount spent falls or stagnates, so will Doge. Yes, a joke is now legit,”. We’re also seeing celebrities drop in on this. Rapper Meek Mill stated that he invested US$50,000 (RM205,350) in Dogecoin, which he did when it was priced at US$0.50 (RM2.05). Imagine if that simply reaches the dollar mark after Elon Musk’s SNL show. The craze for the crypto got so bad that WazirX, a trusted crypto-investment app actually had its servers crashed. In an official statement they said “Doge’s sudden price movement has caused a massive surge in our traffic. We’re seeing more than a 1000% spike in concurrent users as” In the past month, Dogecoin’s value has gone 10x.
This article was first published on Lifestyle Asia India.
(Photos: Getty Images)
