The price of Dogecoin, the meme cryptocurrency, has declined again following a dip on Wednesday and a rise of around 74 percent last week. Its trading volume soared by 165 percent last week.
© Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images
A photo illustration of cryptocurrencies including Dogecoin and Bitcoin, displayed on January 29 in The Netherlands.
Dogecoin’s value began decreasing again from around Thursday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
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On Friday, the price of Dogecoin (listed as DOGE on the cryptocurrency market) was reported to be at $0.067976, with a 24-hour trading volume of $4,583,670,387, at the time of publishing.
The latest price marked a 7.3 percent drop in the last 24 hours, while its latest market cap value (the total market value of a cryptocurrency’s circulating supply) also declined by around seven percent in the same period, at the time of reporting.
Dogecoin remains in 12th place among the world’s largest cryptocurrencies based on market cap value, according to CoinMarketCap.
Dogecoin’s latest price on Friday marked a nearly tenfold increase since late January when it was as low as $0.007348 at one point on January 27, according to data compiled by CoinMarketCap.
The price of the meme cryptocurrency has surged following the recent GameStop stock buying frenzy. The video game retailer’s stock price hike was fueled by investments from users on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, which inspired members of the subreddit r/SatoshiStreetBets to attempt to do the same for Dogecoin.
The sudden rise of Dogecoin, which began as a joke cryptocurrency, has baffled some people, including its creator Billy Markus, the software engineer who launched Dogecoin back in 2013.
Markus is no longer a part of the Dogecoin project but has been facing “harassment from the community” following Dogecoin’s recent resurgence, Markus tweeted in late January.
Earlier this week in an open letter posted on Reddit, Markus weighed in on Dogecoin’s latest rise.
Markus wrote: “The first few weeks after Dogecoin was released was incredibly fast moving, and I think I would succinctly describe it as ‘complete utter insanity.’ It went from a silly joke to something worth something to people very quickly, and a community was developing fast, with lots of shady people and lots of new people, quickly putting up services and infrastructure around it.
“People are talking about Dogecoin going to $1 – that would make the ‘market cap’ larger than actual companies that provide services to millions, such as Boeing, Starbucks, American Express, IBM. Does Dogecoin deserve that? That is not something I can comprehend, let alone answer.
“Keep educating yourself as much as you can on how cryptocurrency works, how these markets work, never risk more than you could safely lose, be vigilant and aware. I wish you all the best,” Markus concluded in the letter.
Dogecoin’s rise came amid interest in other cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency based on market cap price. Earlier this week Tesla, the electric car maker, announced the company has invested around $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.
On Wednesday, Mastercard announced it will “start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on our network” this year, as it is “preparing for the future of crypto and payments.”
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