In this photographic illustration, visual representations of digital cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Ripple are ordered.
Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images News | Getty Images
GUANGZHOU, China – Dogecoin, a digital currency originally founded as a joke, has skyrocketed more than 800% after a Reddit board talked about turning it into GameStop’s cryptocurrency equivalent.
According to Coingecko, the price of the dogecoin stood at $ 0.070755 around 12.01pm in Singapore, an increase of 800% over the previous 24 hours. It was not far from the 24-hour high of $ 0.072330 earlier in the day.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 based on the popular “doge” meme of the time involving a Shiba Inu dog. The dogecoin logo is a Shiba Inu. It initially started out as a joke, but has since found a community.
While in recent years it has taken a secondary place in larger cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether, its resurgence in recent days has been due to the enthusiasm of a Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets. Like the WallStreetBets group, which was behind the GameStop rally, SatoshiStreetBets is looking to increase cryptocurrencies.
Satoshi is the name of the mysterious founder or group of people who developed bitcoin.
At 12.03pm in Singapore, dogecoin had added about $ 7.17 billion to its market capitalization or total value, in 24 hours, according to Coinmarket limit data. Its total market capitalization stood at $ 8.2 billion, making it the ninth largest cryptocurrency.
On Thursday, a poster claimed that Doge is the “crypto gme.” GME is the GameStop scoreboard.
Another post suggested bringing doge to $ 1 the coin. The cryptocurrency has never been $ 1. In 2013, when it started, it was trading at about $ 0.000232.
As the price of dogecoin skyrocketed, there have been big drops in the last few hours. Reddit users on the board encourage people not to sell and to “keep pushing”.
Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, who previously tweeted about the stocks and sent them up, has tweeted about dogecoin in the past and indicated in April 2019 that it was his “favorite cryptocurrency “.
On Thursday, he tweeted at the cover image of “Dogue” magazine, a play with the popular fashion title “Vogue.” Many Twitter and Reddit users felt that Musk was giving his support behind the doge rally.
A Reddit user wrote, “Mr. Musk is with us … to the moon.”
However, the situation with dogecoin looks different at GameStop.
Reddit group WallStreetBets seems to be pushing the narrative of GameStop stock buying in order to create pain for hedge funds that are missing or betting on stocks. When you buy shares of GameStop, the so-called short squeeze is created, which forces the funds to cover their losses. This raises stocks.
Short sellers borrow shares to sell them, in order to buy them at a lower price in the future, so that they can pocket the profits.
But there is no such dynamic of lack of hedge funds at play with dogecoin. Instead, it looks like a group of people are just trying to raise the cryptocurrency to make money. One of the first posts on SatoshiStreetBets said, “Let’s make DOGECOIN a thing. That’s it, it’s the post.”
This activity is not new to the cryptocurrency space and has been going on for several years.
In 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sounded the alarm for “pumping and unloading” schemes. It is at this point that a certain cryptocurrency is expressed online and more and more people are buying it. Those that were early on sell when the price goes up, but many will buy near the top and lose money.