At a time when India is framing a cryptocurrency bill to regularise Indian era of digital currency, the Reddit-driven market manipulators have turned their attention to Dogecoin, a digital coin originally founded as a joke.
Once pushed by a group on Reddit board, it soared over 800%, making it a GameStop alternative for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. created in 2013 based on the Japanese popular Shiba Inu dog memes, the cryptocurrency's value was jacked up in the last few days by a Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets.
They used Elon Musk's old tweet bearing a magazine cover of "Dogue", playing on "Vogue" cover, showing the picture of a dog. The image had Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Ripple to make it visually clear that the Dogeoin is in the race now.
Dogecoin shot up to $0.070755 on Thursday, a surge of 800% in just 24 hours. By Friday, it eased to $0.057410 at 10 a.m., which was still around 150%. It had hit an intraday high of $0.072330. In 2013, when it was started, it was trading around $0.000232.
Dogecoin, which had taken a backseat compared to Bitcoin and Ether, has witnessed a sudden surge due to a group effort on Reddit by SantoshiStreetBets, similar to the group WallStreetBets, that pushed the GameStop rally a week before.
SatoshiStreetBets, named after the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, has created about $7.17 billion worth market capitalization in 24 hours, with its total market cap standing at $8.2 billion, according to data from Coinmarket cap. It's now the ninth largest cryptocurrency.
Reddit push
Now that Reddit users are asking people not to sell Dogeoin but to "keep pushing", a tweet by Elon Musk has come handy. Previously in April 2019, the Tesla founder had tweeted about dogecoin stating that it was his "fav cryptocurrency." Again on Thursday, Jan.29, he shared a picture of a magazine cover of "Dogue" — a play on "Vogue."
The move has caught the attention of many users on Twitter and Reddit, who claimed that it was endorsement of dogecoin by Musk. One Reddit user wrote: "Mr Musk is with us.. to the moon." So, is the growth of cryp0tocurrency. It remains to be seen whether the Indian cryptocurrency bill takes not of these developments.
