While Bitcoin may be the poster boy for the ongoing cryptocurrency wave, having recently crossed $48,000 and well on its way towards hitting $50,000, other crypto tokens have also been having a field day, even though they might not be close to Bitcoin’s price. Ethereum has also grown in popularity over the last 12 months or so, for example, largely due to the various applications of the underlying Ether blockchain, and the likes of Ripple’s XRP have provided significant returns to investors as well.
A rising tide raises all boats, as the saying goes, and the tide of cryptocurrencies certainly does not look like receding any time soon. This wave has been so prevalent that even some tokens which were started as a joke and an extension of a meme, are now seriously being considered by investors looking for that edge in the market, or those who are being priced out of Bitcoin. Yes, we are talking about dogecoin.
January saw a unique phenomenon in the stock market in the United States, where traders and investors on a Reddit forum came together to try and tank the fortunes of hedge funds. The stock in question was GameStop, a struggling video game retailer, which had been heavily shorted by hedge funds and institutional investors, with further guidance to investors that the price was expected to fall even more. Users on r/wallstreetbets, a subreddit on Reddit, realized that the volume of shares shorted was greater than the volume of shares on the market, which meant that some entities had shorted the stock and used the proceeds to borrow and short it even more.
Thus, they began buying the stock in huge quantities, driving the price up to and forcing huge losses on those short-sellers. In what became known as a battle between Wall Street and the common man on the street, Dogecoin got involved as well, as the same Redditors began to pump up the price of the token. Dogecoin rose in value by more than 900% in just a few weeks as a result of these actions, and consequently, it has become difficult for users to withdraw their Dogecoin holdings.
Of course, this frenzy has led to questions around whether Dogecoin can now be considered a serious crypto investment. Many industry watchers believe so, and those in other sectors are also getting on the bandwagon. We have seen many businesses begin to offer users the option of making payments in crypto, and increasingly, Dogecoin is forming a part of the list of cryptos allowed. Additionally, in the online gambling space, for example, players can actually place bets in cryptocurrency now.
Thus, games like dogecoin blackjack, for example, have seen a lot of demand, and players can actually use Dogecoin to bet on online casino table games, which has also led to more and more people looking to buy the crypto.
The ongoing rally in Dogecoin’s price has caused a few issues, though, as stated above. Major crypto exchanges such as Bittrex, Poloniex, and Yobit reported issues with users wanting to withdraw their Dogecoin holdings. This may have been a result of high selling pressure, as more and more people tried to exit with their profits, which did lead to Dogecoin dropping out of the top 10 cryptocurrencies globally by market capitalization. It is currently in 13th place, but the price rise of the last few weeks has still been incomparable to the losses seen recently.
For example, Dogecoin is up around 480% over the last seven days, and it had surged by more than 260% in a 24-hour period, which shows just how rapid its growth has been.
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