The first meme coin was born in 2013: Dogecoin (DOGE). This crypto currency is a kind of homage to the well-known Mem Doge, whose origins go back to 2005. Years later, Jackson Palmer, a marketer for Adobe Systems, bought the Dogecoin.com domain for fun. It started out what it would be a digital currency with a market cap of over $ 7 billion.
Now we have a strange phenomenon regarding this cryptocurrency. The price was raised to new all-time highs (ATHs) last February and this was not due to something inherent in the coin itself. Dogecoin’s system has its own blockchain similar to Litecoin, and it hasn’t changed much in a while.
The reasons for this sudden growth are partly fun and partly revenge. And the consequent acceptance because of it.
WallStreetBets, Gamestop and Dogecoin
In case you don’t already know, there is a subreddit called WallStreetBets (WSB) where users worldwide meet to share experiences about the stock market. And to defy the entire financial system by banding together to sabotage Wall Street, it seems.
Let’s do the checking. GameStop (GME) is an American company that physically sells video games and related products. With the advent of online gaming platforms (Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, etc.) and the COVID-19 pandemic, they haven’t been doing particularly well. They have suffered financial losses from millionaires and closed thousands of their businesses worldwide.
For this reason, on the exchanges, the larger investors (ie investment companies) have bet on failure and made profits with such bets. They borrowed (and sold) GME stock in early January, expecting it to decline until the end to make a profit. There was great disappointment and alarm when stocks did not decline, but suddenly skyrocketed.
Starting at $ 17.25, these stocks hit $ 325 + per unit. This meant an increase of over 1.784% and millionaire losses for the short sellers. All because of a group of Redditors from WSB. They literally planned to buy massive GME stocks to increase their price and most likely deliberately sabotage the larger hedge funds.
The reasons for this would be to seek more than just profit, mere revenge. The larger hedge funds are widely blamed for the 2008 financial crisis for creating a terrible mortgage bubble that left millions of people homeless.
Lots of people and even some celebrities joined the Gamestop frenzy because it was just the beginning. At one point, someone called “WSBChairman” on Twitter wondered if Dogecoin ever hit the dollar. And it’s been a nice boost for the price of this crypto. Soon even Elon Musk joined the party with more tweets and a purchase for his son.
Bought Dogecoin for Lil X so he could be a toddler hodler
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2021
Recent movements and forecasts
The Dogecoin buying fever in late January and early February resulted in a new ATH of over USD 0.084 per coin. Also, I got a #DogeArmy on Twitter determined to get this token down to a dollar. And despite Tesla’s purchase of Bitcoin, Elon Musk doesn’t seem to have completely lost his fondness for that currency. In the past this has been more than enough to move the DOGE market up.
Dogen written backwards is Egod
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2021
More recently, Dogecoin has increased in adoption. The crypto trader BitPay has added the currency to its services. The Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team will accept it for tickets and merchandise. The crypto ATM company CoinFlip has just made DOGE available at over 1,800 ATMs in the US. And the custom sportswear brand Wooter Apparel also accepted this currency.
Not bad for a meme coin, right? It’s so popular these days that a single Dogecoin-themed non-fungible token (NFT / collectible) sold for nearly $ 70,000 on Ethereum. Mark Cuban, the owner of Dallas Mavericks, has even calculated that Dogecoin can hit the dollar.
According to him, the team has made over 20,000 DOGE. If they keep doing this, they can really help increase the Dogecoin price.
The @dallasmavs have made more than 20,000 #Dogecoin in transactions, making them the BIGGEST #DOGECOIN DEALER IN THE WORLD! We thank you all and can only say that #dogecoin will definitely beat $ 1 if we sell more Mavs Merch worth 6,556,000,000 #DOGECOIN
– Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 6, 2021
He’s not the only one to believe it. Popular analysts have placed this coin between $ 0.006 and $ 1 by the end of 2021. Others even bet at $ 10 to $ 50 over the next five years. Of course, it’s never a safe bet, but who had guessed the growth so far? Not even its founder, Billy Markus, as he recently explained in an open letter.
“People are talking about Dogecoin going to $ 1 – that would make the market cap bigger than actual companies that serve millions like Boeing, Starbucks, American Express, and IBM. Did Dogecoin deserve this? I can’t understand that, let alone answer it. “
The power of culture can be enormous. And Dogecoin is part of that. For now, all we can do is wait and see from rank 14 in market capitalization and a price of over $ 0.0056 per coin. Who knows if we can profit or lose everything tomorrow? But as Billy Markus admitted: “Dogecoin and the Dogecoin community can be a driving force”.
You can find more information about crypto and blockchain on the official Alfacash blog
About the author
Isabel Pérez, Alfacash
Literature professional in the crypto world since 2016. Writer, researcher and bitcoiner. Working for a better world with more decentralization and coffee.
Image by Marcel Heidemann from Pixabay
