Saturday 17th April 2021
Dogecoin worth over 50 billion
Price of joke cryptocurrency exploded
With the Coinbase IPO, the crypto euphoria has reached a new dimension. Bitcoin & Co. are climbing further heights. But everything is overshadowed by the digital currency Dogecoin. According to crypto fans, the currency, which was once started as a parody, “doesn’t really have a purpose”.
Dogecoin was created years ago as a parody of Bitcoin & Co., now the market value of the cryptocurrency has risen to more than 50 billion dollars for a short time. The price explosion of Dogecoin thus eclipsed the development of Bitcoin and other well-known digital currencies. The rate has increased more than fivefold within a week, and within a year it has even risen 200 times to a good 40 US cents at times on Friday.
Among other things, Tesla boss Elon Musk had repeatedly made positive statements about Dogecoin in the past few months, which had led to price increases in each case. The latest price explosion, however, seems to be primarily due to the meeting of small investors in internet forums. The development coincides with the widely acclaimed IPO of the crypto platform Coinbase, which many observers consider to be a milestone in the establishment of digital currencies in the financial world. Dogecoin, however, cannot be traded at Coinbase. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have also posted significant gains recently. But not to the same extent as Dogecoin.
Even crypto enthusiasts warn that Dogecoin is an insubstantial hype and that the price could collapse at any time. Dogecoin “doesn’t really have a purpose,” said crypto investor and billionaire Michael Novogratz at Bloomberg. “I would be very, very concerned if a friend of mine invested in Dogecoin at these prices.” Like other observers, Novogratz feels reminded of the Gamestock share. Although professional investors considered them largely worthless, their value had been driven to extreme heights by small investors who met on the Reddit Internet platform.
The software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer developed Dogecoin in 2013 as an alternative to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Because they found it “funny” by their own admission, they used the image of a Shiba dog as a symbol, which was then spread on the Internet as a meme. Co-developer Markus does not benefit from the current hype. He sold all of his Dogecoin years ago – for the equivalent of a small car, as he wrote in a forum on Reddit.
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