This week’s Dogecoin frenzy has had a toll on one unlikely person: its co-founder, Billy Markus, aka Shibetoshi Nakamoto.
Although Dogecoin began as a joke—a so-called “meme coin” that takes the form of a cute Shiba Inu, designed to mock Bitcoin knockoffs—this week’s price increase was anything but: Dogecoin’s price shot from around $0.01 to over $0.04 overnight on January 28. But it later fell back on itself; Dogecoin's current price is $0.027.
Markus tweeted earlier today that he terminated his affiliation with the project seven years ago due to harassment from Dogecoin investors; he has no current involvement in the project. But he took to Twitter today to say that he was once again the target of abuse this week.
Markus did not comment on the nature of the harassment or who was involved. He only wants people to know “what it feels like to have a mob demand you to do something for them on a project that you have no current involvement in, that you've seen others make many millions off of.”
also i don't say this as a sob story - i'm financially fine - i just want to offer some perspective of what it feels like to have a mob demand you to do something for them on a project that you have no current involvement in, that you've seen others make many millions off of
Dogecoin’s success this week came after concentrated efforts on the r/SatoshiStreetBets subreddit to push up the price. Crypto traders on the subreddit emulated a GameStop-style meme success from another subreddit earlier this week: the r/Wallstreetbets subreddit. The latter, which describes itself as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal,” was the center of action for grassroots efforts to push up the video game company GameStop’s stock prices. It did so by frantically buying its shares, forcing hedge funds to buy up even more.
While retail investors high-tailed it out of GameStop after regulators stepped in to stem the bleeding from hedge fund pockets, over in crypto, another bubble emerged overnight.
The currency in question was Dogecoin, and the band of retail investors looking to pump - and it seems, dump the project - was a WallStreetBets copycat subreddit called SatoshiStreetBets.
On Thursday, the community which boasts 86,500 users started discussing emulating the explosion in the price of GameStop stock on Do...
The Dogecoin frenzy is the second this month; the price rose on January 3. This follows an earlier boost before Christmas when Elon Musk tweeted ‘one word: DOGE’. During this week’s price boom, Musk also tweeted a mock Vogue magazine cover titled ‘Dogue’.
But Markus is not one of the people who profited from this week’s Dogecoin surge. He said he sold all his doge in 2015 “made about enough to buy a used honda civic.” His net worth is unknown.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin accumulation quietly persists under IMF watch.
While President Nayib Bukele’s government formally paused its Bitcoin acquisitions by public sector entities to satisfy International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan conditions, the country's Bitcoin Office continues to quietly expand the country’s national reserves.
In the past month, El Salvador added another 32 BTC worth more than $650,000, bringing its total holdings to 6,161.18 BTC valued at roughly $584 million, consistent with...
Privacy blockchain Monero (XMR) jumped 51% on Monday—and on-chain investigators pointed to hackers laundering $330 million in stolen Bitcoin as the likely culprit.
Early on Monday, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT highlighted a “suspicious transfer” made from a “potential victim” of 3,520 BTC (worth approximately $333 million). Soon after, the funds were swapped to XMR via multiple exchanges. ZachXBT believes this was “theft” due to the high fees paid and the suspicious activity once the funds had been m...
Spar supermarkets in Switzerland are preparing to roll out Bitcoin payments nationwide after a successful pilot backed by the crypto payments firm DFX Swiss, in a move that could make crypto a staple of everyday life.
Earlier this month, Spar’s Zug location began accepting Bitcoin via the Lightning Network, using DFX Swiss’s OpenCryptoPay platform, an open, peer-to-peer standard designed for in-person crypto transactions.
A second Spar store in Kreuzlingen followed a few days later. “Zug was ju...
