Dogecoin, dogecoin, dogecoin!
Lately, that must be what bitcoin holders are saying. Owners of the world’s # 1 crypto, like Jan from the 1970s sitcom, “The Brady Bunch,” must feel like they are living in the shadow of a more intriguing and compelling sister crypto.
For Jan Brady, that sister was Marcia. For bitcoin, it was dogecoin for the past year.
MarketWatch / iStockphoto
The numbers tell the clearest story, dogecoin hit a record 45.04 cents on CoinDesk on Friday, with a 24-hour trading volume of $ 69,485,678,473, according to CoinMarketCap.
Dogecoin DOGEUSD,
is up 170% in the past day and is up more than 7,252% so far this year, taking its market value to well over $ 40 billion, slapping a number of millionaires on paper, eager to show off their new windfall on social media and their commitment to “hodl” to the end.
It’s a stunning move for a crypto designed as a joke in 2013 and now being defended by billionaire Mark Cuban, who now accepts doge as payment for tickets for his NBA franchise, and Tesla Inc. TSLA,
CEO Elon Musk, who has used his Twitter account to openly push the price of doge up, has been criticized by some Wall Street investors.
In comparison, bitcoin is down less than 1% in the last day, and it is at $ 61,796 Friday afternoon. It’s up a relatively everyday 112% so far in 2021.
Traditional assets have made outright pedestrian gains compared to the crypto offering, albeit with much less volatility.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and the S&P 500 SPX,
are up more than 11% so far this year and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
has increased by 8.8% over the same period. Gold futures GC00,
meanwhile, they have fallen by more than 6% in the past year.
The earnings catalyst for crypto is hard to link, but the moves have seen a renewed eruption following crypto platform Coinbase Global COIN’s listing on Nasdaq,
on Wednesday, a turning point for the digital asset complex.
Many still warn that dogecoin reflects euphoria bubbling up in the market, and warn that new investors could be seriously harmed by jumping with both feet into dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies.