Dogecoin (DOGE), a digital currency created as a joke, is now the world’s 7th largest cryptocurrency and is no longer a laughing matter.
Dogecoin has now flipped Uniswap and Litecoin to take the 7th position, according to CoinMarketCap. This year alone, the so called “Meme Joke” cryptocurrency has surged from less than a cent to hit a price of around US $0.35 today with a 24-hour trading volume of US $35.4 billion.
Its price is up in recent days due to the celebrity push from the likes of Tesla’s Elon Musk, the rapper Snoop Dogg who promoted Dogecoin on social media. The Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently reported that his basketball team’s store had sold more than 122,000 DOGE worth of merchandise since it first began accepting the coin in March. Cuban has also declared that he will continue to “HODL the coin and will never sell”.
Dogecoin is called the “fun and friendly internet currency” by its creators. The token was created in 2013 as satire about the proliferation of dubious crypto coins at the time. The “Doge” internet meme, featuring a perpetually surprised Shiba Inu dog, has been gaining viral fame every since its creation. Dogecoin holders often use the tokens to give each other small tips online.
As the price of Dogecoin has surged, a few outlets have adopted the cryptocurrency as a form of payment. “There are many different reasons that people are buying it, and it’s more or less gone mainstream at this point,” Billy Markus said, an IBM engineer and a co-creator of Dogecoin. “It’s one of the most volatile assets you can make a bet on, but people right now have a lot of reasons to make that bet, and that is being reflected in the market.”
