Dogecoin jumped pretty high in value Wednesday after celebrities tweeted about the meme-based cryptocurrency, CNBC reports.
Recent Dogecoin spike
Dogecoin — a form of cryptocurrency that has been going viral on social media over the last few weeks — jumped 20%, reaching a value of $0.32 per coin, according to CNBC.
- That’s slightly below the cryptocurrency’s record of $0.45, which it hit earlier in the month.
The Dogecoin cryptocurrency originally started as a joke, using the Shiba Inu dog as a picture. Seriously — this is a meme that is now worth actual money.
- Dogecoin was valued at $0.0023 in June 2020. So it has spiked significantly in less than one year.
Why did Dogecoin rise in value?
There were two recent tweets that encouraged Dogecoin to spike.
- One of the tweets came from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who announced his upcoming appearance on “Saturday Night Life” with a tweet that read: “The Dogefather SNL May 8.”
- Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweeted that the biggest problem for Dogecoin is that people can’t spend it even though they’ve invested in it. “The greatest inhibitor to its growth is that you can’t spend the Doge you buy on Robinhood,” Cuban tweeted.
Not long after Cuban’s tweet, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the Robinhood app — where you can buy and trade cryptocurrency — would make it easier for people to withdraw their Dogecoin holdings, as I explained for the Deseret News.
Of course, making money may never have been the point of Dogecoin, per Benzinga.
- “An investment in Dogecoin is not about making money (although it may happen accidentally) it’s about being a part of something bigger,” according to Benzinga.