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DogeCoin almost hit 70 cents: What's behind the latest surge

In January, crypto traders fantasized about DogeCoin hitting 10 cents. On Wednesday, it made it to 69 cents.

Daniel Van Boom Senior Writer
Daniel Van Boom is an award-winning Senior Writer based in Sydney, Australia. Daniel Van Boom covers cryptocurrency, NFTs, culture and global issues. When not writing, Daniel Van Boom practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reads as much as he can, and speaks about himself in the third person.
Expertise Cryptocurrency, Culture, International News
Oscar Gonzalez Former staff reporter
Oscar Gonzalez is a Texas native who covered video games, conspiracy theories, misinformation and cryptocurrency.
Expertise Video Games, Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptocurrency, NFTs, Movies, TV, Economy, Stocks
Daniel Van Boom
Oscar Gonzalez
2 min read
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To the moon.

DogeCoin started as a joke cryptocurrencies, but this week's rise in price is nothing to laugh at. The altcoin hit a record 69 cents Wednesday morning, flying past its previous high of 43 cents back in April. It has since made its way down to around 55 cents. Even if DogeCoin was only briefly over 60 cents, it's still a new milestone in DogeCoin's miraculous 2021. Back in January, when each token was worth around 1 cent, Doge devotees had dreams of the coin hitting 10 cents in value. 

The price of DogeCoin started ticking up over the weekend. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is Doge's highest-profile supporter, and his tweets related to the cryptocurrency tend to lead to a jump in its value. Musk posted a tweet last week that referenced The Dogefather and his upcoming hosting gig on Saturday Night Live May 8. 

Additionally, trading platforms eToro and Gemini listed the memecoin, drastically expanding its reach. eToro alone has 20 million users, who can now easily buy DogeCoin through its platform. 

The spike in DogeCoin trading seems to have caused issues for the Robinhood investing app, which said it was experiencing issues with cryptocurrency trading, likely due to the demand. 

If you're familiar with cryptocurrency , you know Bitcoin and maybe Ethereum. Those are the two biggest cryptocurrencies, but underneath them is an entire market of smaller ones called "altcoins" -- or, sometimes, "shitcoins." These are like the penny stocks of the cryptocurrency world. Many aim or claim to have utility, or improve facets of the Ethereum blockchain, upon which most altcoins are built. Others are "memecoins," which rise and fall in popularity simply because they're kind of funny. 

Created in 2013, DogeCoin was the first such memecoin. There are many others, and they're preposterous. One simply called Meme launched in August at $1 and now trades at over $2,000.