The market capitalization of Dogecoin (DOGE), a meme cryptocurrency using the Shiba Inu dog breed as its mascot, has briefly surpassed the $10 billion mark thanks to tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other celebrities.
The price of the cryptocurrency, according to available data, hit a new record high of $0.083 before dropping to $0.0739 at press time. Its market capitalization briefly surpassed the $10 billion mark before dropping to $9.48 billion at press time, making it the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Over the last seven days, the price of DOGE is up over 88%, partly thanks to Elon Musk and a campaign fueled by retail investors to help the price of one DOGE hit $1, taking advantage of the momentum created through the WallStreetsBets’ move to create a short squeeze on GameStop shares.
Through a series of tweets, Musk has been playing around with Dogecoin, tweeting various jokes using the cryptocurrency and sharing community-created content. The cryptocurrency’s community is well-known for taking on philanthropic projects, which included helping charitable organizations.
It made headlines in 2014 after raising more than $25,000 worth of DOGE to let the Jamaican bobsleigh team attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Musk’s tweets that led to the Dogecoin pump came shortly after he claimed he was taking a break from Twitter “for a while,” and as he came back so did the tweets about the meme cryptocurrency. Kiss singer Gene Simmons later on joined the fun and said he has made a “six figure” investment in DOGE, while also owning other cryptoassets.
Snoop Dogg then tweeted out an edited version of one of his album covers, where he replaced his name for “Snoop Doge” while covering his face with the Shiba Inu dog’s image.
Elon Musk’s comments come at a time in which cryptocurrency derivatives trading platforms BitMEX launched Dogecoin perpetual swap contracts, allowing investors to speculate on the cryptocurrency’s price through long or short positions.
BitMEX allows traders to leverage their positions up to 20x and bases the contracts on the underlying bitcoin equivalent of the DOGE/USDT trading pairs on other cryptocurrency trading platforms.
Musk, who earlier said he believes bitcoin is on the verge of mass adoption, has revealed he is a supporter of bitcoin. According to Tesla’s latest annual report (on Form 10-K), which has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the electric car maker has already invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.
Featured image via Pixabay.
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