Dogecoin Shines as Bitcoin, Ethereum Prices Recover From Summer Slump

Dogecoin has had a wild 2021 to date, climbing more than 13,000% from a price point under a penny at the start of the year to a peak above $0.73 per DOGE in May—and a steady decline amidst wider market struggles to a recent low of about $0.17.

Today, however, Dogecoin is the biggest winner in the Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, posting a gain of nearly 14% over the last 24 hours per CoinGecko. As of this writing, Dogecoin’s price sits above $0.22, a mark it hadn’t seen since July 9.

Dogecoin has now risen 21% in value over the last seven days, essentially matching Bitcoin's climb during the same span and just short of Ethereum's 23% leap over the last week. A single DOGE is worth a fraction as much as those market leaders, of course, but percentage gains are the real mark of performance for holders.

The last couple weeks have been particularly volatile for the leading meme coin, and while the up-and-down swings have constituted only pennies’ worth of difference in price, the percentage swings—down 20% over the past week as of July 16, then up 10% after Elon Musk changed his Twitter profile picture—have been potentially unsettling for investors.

Amidst all of it, Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer—who left the project in 2015—launched a scathing critique of cryptocurrency on Twitter.

“After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity,” he tweeted on July 14, kicking off a lengthy thread on the matter.

“Cryptocurrency is like taking the worst parts of today's capitalist system (eg. corruption, fraud, inequality) and using software to technically limit the use of interventions (eg. audits, regulation, taxation) which serve as protections or safety nets for the average person,” Palmer added.

Even so, his co-creation continues to thrive in the market, as seen in the gains over the last 24 hours. Dogecoin has a current market cap above $29 billion, which is seventh highest by market cap, although its price is still nearly 70% off its May peak.

Outside of the Top 10, other notable winners today include Chainlink, which is up more than 18% over the last 24 hours to a price of $19.45, as well as Polygon (ex-Matic), up 19% to a price of $1.08 as of this writing.