Bloomberg
Crypto Craze Fuels Dogecoin Rises Jokingly to $ 50 Billion
(Bloomberg) – While Coinbase Global Inc. the hits achieved with its market debut, the madness surrounding digital signs is taking its most popular turn yet in the price of a sign created as a joke. Dogecoin, boosted by the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, reached about 180% on Friday, reaching a market value of more than $ 48 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com. It is now 18,000% higher than a year ago when it traded for $ 0.002 and was worth about $ 250 million. Doges’ boom is part of an increase in altcoins, a term for all the digital tokens that have emerged in imitation of Bitcoin. Like most of them, its use is limited, making it a tool for speculators and raising concerns that a bubble is bursting in a crypto-world now worth more than $ 2.25 trillion. ‘It reminds me of the dot com days. We knew something big was going on, and many investors were chasing it hard. This has led to a bubble, ‘said Scott Knapp, chief market strategist at CUNA Mutual Group. “For every Amazon.com, there were 10 pets.com that went bankrupt. Is Dogecoin the pets.com of the cryptocurrency era? ‘Interest in crypto is growing again after companies from PayPal to Square started making transactions in Bitcoin on their systems possible, and Wall Street companies like Morgan Stanley started offering access to the tokens to some. of the richest customers. All the while, crypto diehards who say that blockchain technology will re-operate the financial community have plugged crypto and become rich in the process. The Shiba-Inu-themed Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. Musk led a protest in it earlier this year when he posted a photo of a faux magazine ‘Dogue’ with a dog in a red sweater. But Michael Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings, does not buy the hype, as Dogecoin ‘does not’ It does not really have a purpose. ” It’s reminiscent of GameStop, ” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, referring to the stock mania that gripped the markets in February. “I would be very, very worried if one of my friends invested in Dogecoin at these prices.” The chances of them cratering are slim to support the case for buying cryptocurrencies, and the novice traders who have jumped on the hype are huge. “The government has now pumped so much monetary and fiscal stimulus into the economy, even offering worthless assets,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading. ignore. Although Bitcoin is worth more than $ 1 trillion, the total market value of the token universe is now more than $ 2.25 trillion, according to CoinGecko.com, which tracks more than 6,700 coins. Bitcoin’s dominance in the crypto world has declined by 28% since the beginning of the year, according to OKEX Insights analyst Robbie Liu, citing data from Tradingview. The waning influence began to accelerate this month, he said in an email on Friday, and Bitcoin now accounts for less than 54% of crypto market capitalization – the lowest level in nearly two years. “On the altcoins front, we continue to see strong momentum,” Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange, a leading exchange of crypto-derivatives, said in a note on Thursday. Taking note of Ether’s recent record and increased activity in decentralized finance or DeFi, he added that “decentralized exchange coins will be in focus over the next few days as the market has ratified Coinbase at a valuation of $ 100 billion.” Other signs with shaky to no fundamentals are also rising. Cardano and Polkadot, both in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, rose this week. “Polkadot and Cardano currently have very few ‘users’,” Shashwat Gupta, founder of Altcoinbuzz.io, said in an email on Wednesday, although he added that a significant amount of development was being built on them. And Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong seems to have taken a stand when he said after the listing that it was a “shift in legitimacy” for crypto. delivers more ‘use cases’ for cryptocurrencies and should grow the crypto market, “said Edward Moya, senior market analyst for North America at Oanda Corp. (updates with comments from Galaxy Digital’s Michael Novogratz begin in the seventh paragraph. An earlier version of this story was corrected to show that Dogecoin was created in 2013.) Visit us at Bloomberg.com for more articles like this, sign up now to stay ahead of the most trusted business resource. © 2021 Bloomberg LP