When Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer created a new cryptocurrency called Dogecoin as a joke, they never expected it to become so popular and reach a market capitalization of US $5,382,875,000 by January of 2021.
Dogecoin was introduced on December 6, 2013 as a peer-to-peer payment system that was supposed to be instant and fun. The popular Shiba Inu dog from the “Doge” meme was featured as the face of Dogecoin.
In January 2021 the value of Dogecoin increased by over 800% overnight due to some reddit users and the attention it got from Elon Musk. Dogecoin has since been the talk of the town after it hit an all-time high in February 2021 after getting twitter attention from Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg and Gene Simmons.
The cryptocurrency was considered as an alternative to bitcoin but was created in such a way as to distance itself from the then questionable reputation of bitcoin. But unlike bitcoins, investors do not really consider Dogecoin as a serious investment rather a cultural one.
“Dogecoin is a legitimate cryptocurrency based on its own blockchain, but it was created as a joke rather than a usable currency. It’s also called a meme currency, which makes fun of all the other currency around it", said Ashish Singhal, chief executive officer and co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber, cryptocurrency investment platform.
Elon musk who has also expressed support for bitcoin has been one of Dogecoin’s biggest advocates recently.
In December of 2020, a single tweet from Musk shot up the price of Dogecoin.
When asked by a twitter user why Musk liked Dogecoin so much, he replied with, “I love dogs and memes”.
"Bought some Dogecoin for lil X, so he can be a toddler hodler," he tweeted, referring to his son, X Æ A-Xii.
Musk’s tweets have had a significant impact on the stock market in the past and his continuous tweets on Dogecoin naturally led to its prices rising. This push by Elon Musk increased Dogecoin’s market value to about $10 billion.
There are rumors flying that all this tweeting and influencing the stock market has apparently landed Musk in trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Although this hasn’t been confirmed yet, it didn’t stop Musk from tweeting and inviting the SEC to conduct a probe into his tweets. “I hope they do! It would be awesome,” said Musk, about the rumored SEC investigation.
Here are some more tweets by Musk that influenced the value of Dogecoin.
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