The story of Dogecoin had been out of interest within dozens of similar coins up to January 2021. Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency based in Litecoin and named after a famous Internet mem ‘Doge’. Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer created it in 2013. In less than a month Dogecoin experienced the first huge fraud; a hacker got access to the system and managed to sell money to his own account.
The name of the coin was often used in the tweets, which made it quite recognizable at those ‘non-crypto’ times. The Dogecoin team created a project ‘SaveDogemas’ so that crypto believers could donate coins to those who had lost them. In a month, they covered all the lost money.
Two-year calm of Doge
In January 2014, Dogecoin traded slightly above the number made by both Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies. However, its market capitalization lagged significantly behind Bitcoin. Next year Jackson Palmer announced plans to take a pause and leave the crypto community for a long while.
Jackson Palmer did not believe in the future of Doge and sold all his coins in 2015. As he mentioned, the coin did make no motions for almost two years. The following years were of great surprise for disconsolate Doge believers and followers. The period of crypto flourishing started in 2017 and Dogecoin briefly peaked at $ 0.017 per coin on January 7, 2018 setting a total market capitalization of about $ 2 billion.
The Great 2021 Year
In April 2021, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies rose sharply in price. It was partially stimulated by the direct listing of the crypto exchange Coinbase. The price of the coin reached $ 0.10 on April 14, and on April 16 reached a new high of $ 0.45. That was the increase by 400% for the week and it amounted to about $ 70 billion in the previous 24 hours. At that time, Dogecoin’s market capitalization approached $ 50 billion, making it the fifth cryptocurrency with the highest value.
The numbers are fascinating: its value has increased by more than 7000% since the beginning of the year! Interest in Dogecoin contributed to the shutdown of the electronic trading platform for the crypto system Robinhood on April 15, caused by “unprecedented demand”, and caused concern among experts about the approach of a speculative bubble in the cryptocurrency market.
Elon Musk and Dogecoin
On May 8, Elon Musk joked during a speech on the popular US television program SNL, answering the question “what is Dogecoin“, and saying that it is a fraud. The Doge then fell from $ 0.73 to $ 0.46. Each Elon’s tweet shakes the crypto market. His messages are often controversial and make it complicated to understand the idea of his point. The crypto community is aware that Tesla CEO has Bitcoin and Doge holdings, but his announcements reflect the doubtful idea about them.
Musk sent Bitcoin sharply higher announcing that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and he said that the Tesla company would accept Bitcoin as payment. The recent message revealed that Tesla wouldn’t accept Bitcoin for payments and power consumption issue is one of the reasons.
What’s next?
Elon Musk hasn’t sold any Dogecoin and he says that he has a large holding of it. The billionaire said that he would send the SpaceX “DOGE-1 mission to the moon” next year. At the same time, he promises to launch his own crypto coin from the scratch if he disappoints in Doge.
Elon assures that he has on influence in Dogecoin. He doesn’t control the developers of the crypto coin. The businessman noted that the altcoin does not have an official organization that would ensure the operability of the digital coin. Thus, he personally does not have subordinates among the developers and his ability to make any decisions is limited.