The price of Dogecoin (DOGE) has exploded recently. Over the last seven days DOGE has increased by about 490% after its price growth went exponential last week. On Friday 16 April alone Dogecoin surged by an incredible 100% to briefly peak at an all-time high of $0.45.
Although it experienced a pullback on Saturday, Dogecoin seems to have been unaffected by the large dip felt by the rest of the crypto market on Sunday and has made gains of 488.6% over the past week alone.
This recent activity has also seen Dogecoin shoot up the rankings on CoinMarketCap, where it is now the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap with a market cap of over $55 billion and a market dominance of 2.66%.
What is Dogecoin?
Dogecoin was created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in 2013 by forking Litecoin’s code. Its name is inspired by the popular “Doge” meme, from which it also gets its logo – a picture of a Shiba Inu.
Dogecoin’s founders wanted to create an instant and fun system for payments which was free from traditional banking fees. The cryptocurrency was primarily employed by Twitter and Reddit users to tip other users for providing content they liked and Dogecoin has remained a staple of memes in the crypto community.
What’s behind DOGE’s recent rally?
The whole crypto market has been pumping this month and while Bitcoin is still in the midst of a major bull run, any significant surge for Bitcoin often pulls other cryptocurrencies up with it. The mainstream media attention and institutional adoption of crypto in general has certainly helped during this bull cycle as many coins other than Bitcoin have also been in the spotlight.
General market trends aren’t the only reason for Dogecoin’s rally, however, with the coin’s vertical price growth suggesting that more specific factors are at play too.
How can I buy Dogecoin stock?
You can buy Dogecoin on a number of cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Kucoin – however it should be noted that Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency and not a stock in a company.
Where can I buy Dogecoin?
Many people are now experiencing DOGE FOMO (fear of missing out) and wondering how they can get involved with the coin. Well firstly, in order to buy or sell DOGE you’ll have to sign up to a cryptocurrency exchange which supports the coin.
There are currently hundreds of different crypto exchanges available offering a range of different features and benefits. However, it’s important to choose a platform that is reliable with a strong performance. To make things easier here are a couple of our recommendations.
1. Binance
Binance is one of the largest and most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, offering hundreds of different coins and a wide range of trading tools for more advanced users. The exchange is responsible for about 40% of DOGE trading volume and offers DOGE trading pairs with USDT, BUSD, BTC, GBP, EUR, AUD, TRY and BRL. Users can also earn 5% returns on their DOGE by transferring it into Binance’s flexible savings account.
2. KuCoin
Founded in 2020, Singapore-based exchange KuCoin claims that one in four crypto holders worldwide use its platform. KuCoin is available for the web and mobile and provides a free trading bot for automatically executing your choice of strategy. DOGE can be traded in the USDT, USDC, BTC and KCS trading pairs and users can earn extra DOGE through lending.
Can you buy Dogecoin on Coinbase or eToro?
Buying Dogecoin on either Coinbase or eToro is currently not possible as the platforms do not support it, however there are plenty of alternative platforms for buying DOGE, such as Binance and Kucoin – see links to the platforms above.
Why is Dogecoin going up?
The attention the meme coin has received from celebrities on Twitter has certainly helped it reach a wider audience. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been tweeting about Dogecoin since April 2019, when he called it his “fav cryptocurrency”.
Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2019
And his enthusiasm doesn’t seem to have abated as he’s regularly shared DOGE-related memes throughout the year.
Doge Barking at the Moon pic.twitter.com/QFB81D7zOL
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2021
Other celebrities have jumped on the DOGE wagon too, including Snoop Dogg and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons who have both tweeted about the coin.
Encouraged by these endorsements and the GameStop short squeeze, many Redditors, particularly those in the group SatoshiStreetBets, have been collectively trying to pump Dogecoin’s price. In addition, the Dogecoin subreddit has gained over 166,000 new subscribers in the last week.