In brief

  • Dogecoin is a joke coin.
  • That doesn't mean it's not valuable.

The Shiba Inu-adorned Dogecoin is back up near its record high of $0.40. And users of the made-up coin are attaching themselves to a made-up holiday to push their beloved DOGE over $1.00—or, failing that, $0.69 (because you know why).

Unlike Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin was designed in 2013 as a joke. Its primary use case over the years has been to deliver LOLs, if not returns, to its ragtag community members. (However, its low value has made it somewhat popular as a tipping token, like pennies in a jar—only enough to make a difference in the aggregate.)

But with the currency experiencing a celebrity-endorsed revival from the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, Dogecoin enthusiasts have taken to Twitter and Reddit to publicize tomorrow's 4/20—an unofficial holiday celebrating cannabis use—as Doge Day. Doge holders are planning on purchasing the coin in large numbers to drive the price up; they want others to do so as well.

Elon Musk tweet about Doge shared on reddit
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Elon Musk Dogecoin Lion King

April 20 comes right on time for the coin, which has never been closer to breaking the dollar mark. Dogecoin started the year at a penny before dipping to its normal sweet spot below that mark. On January 27, however, the coin jumped to $0.03. That same day a popular Twitter account called @WSBChairman (a reference to the WallStreetBets subreddit that collaborated to aggressively push up the price of GameStop stock earlier this year), tweeted, “Has Doge ever been to a dollar?” 

With the “stonk” and DOGE worlds increasingly unified in highlighting both the ridiculousness of securities trading and the arbitrary nature of assigning value, Dogecoin began a months-long campaign to reach the $0.10 mark (presumably, so holders could finally buy a cup of coffee in the 1950s). It finally reached that mark on April 12, and in one short week has quadrupled to its current mark of $0.40, according to data from Nomics.

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Even as the general cryptocurrency market tanked over the weekend with Bitcoin shaving off $5,000 since Friday, Dogecoin didn’t seem to notice. After briefly stalling on Friday, it went right on pumping all the way to a spot in the top five of cryptocurrencies by market cap.

There are a few things standing in Dogecoin’s way on its rise to $1.00, however. For starters, outside of Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks, not many merchants accept DOGE as payment. While that didn’t stand in the way of Bitcoin, which up until a few years ago had few takers, Dogecoin also has no supply limit, so it’s not exactly rare. Its current market cap of $52 billion is just as much about its circulating supply of 129 billion coins; by comparison, there are only 18.6 million Bitcoins floating around.

Moreover, there are about 10,000 new coins created every minute; for the value to hold, people must purchase as many DOGE per minute at the current price or higher. 

Long story short: While Dogecoin could realistically hit the $1 mark, buoyed by celebrity purchases from Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, and Mia Khalifa—it will have trouble staying there without changes to its economic system.

That said, if Elon Musk, who famously toked up on Joe Rogan’s podcast, were to tweet about DOGE on Tuesday (which seems likely), the internet might explode. And that would be priceless.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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