The Story Behind the Fluctuations of the Twitter Trending, Dogecoin
Why does the meme coin become a trend on Twitter? Is it just because of the tweets by Elon Musk and his appearance in SNL?
Dogecoin originally started as a joke, is now racing to reach $1 in price with a market cap of $93.38 billion at present and stood as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the world- all thanks to Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors.
Elon Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin is now trending on Twitter with #dogetothemoon, #ElonMuskSNL, and #dogeCoinTo1Dollar tags. Though it is not new with Musk’s tweets about dogecoin, it has a different reason this time for a lookout. The sudden attention and the rise in price at this hour are due to the tweets by Elon Musk stating his appearance in “Saturday Night Live”, NBC’s Emmy Award-winning late-night comedy show. It is the first time Elon muck is hosting the SNL and is also the first time that the show is streaming internationally on YouTube to around 100 countries worldwide. Before getting to know why dogecoin is trending now, we need to know a little about dogecoin and its background.
What is Dogecoin?
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency just like a bitcoin, a very popular digital currency in online trading, but is in unlimited supply. It is also called a ‘meme coin’ as a reference to a meme dog ‘Shiba Inu’. The birth of dogecoin is not just interesting, but silly. Because the whole thing of the dogecoin was all started as a joke and a satire to the cryptocurrencies of the time, especially the bitcoin.
In 2013, a Japanese breed dog, Shiba Inu’s face became the face for the memes. It also won the ‘2013 meme of the year’ award. Noticing the popularity of dogecoin, An Adobe software engineer, Jackson Palmer registered a domain name with Dogecoin.com and placed a logo for the empty website. The logo is nothing but the then-popular meme, Shiba Inu’s face. He was stunned by the millions of views to the website. That is when he decided to make this meme coin turn into a real cryptocurrency. He, along with an IBM software engineer, Billy Markus, officially launched the dogecoin on 6 December 2013. Even then it is not considered a serious cryptocurrency. Let’s also look at what cryptocurrency is exactly.
What is cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that can be used in online trading like buying and selling goods. It uses an online ledger with strong and secured cryptography to protect online transactions. Most cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technology, a technology that allows bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to operate without a need for a central authority. Hence cryptocurrency is said to be decentralized control, unlike centralized banking systems.
There are several types of cryptocurrencies available. The top 5 of them as of May 2021 are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, Dogecoin, and XRP. Of all, Bitcoin is considered to be the original cryptocurrency and topped among the list with a market cap of $1.1 trillion.
Why is dogecoin trending now?
The price of dogecoin on 19 December 2013 is $0.00095. The present price of the same is $0.725002 as of 8 May 2021 and is in the race to reach $1 Mark. There were fluctuations from the day it started to till today. But from the past few weeks, it is on the rising hand.
The price of the dogecoin reached 72 cents on the 8th of May, which is a record in dogecoin history. This indicates a rise of 12,000% YOY, and more than a 30,000% rise from its official lunch. No wonder, this price surge is after Musk posted a photo of him, Kid Laroi, and Miley Cyrus, a famous American singer, along with an unexpected guest Shiba Inu, the meme dog photoshopped with a tweet ‘Guest Starring’. Shiba Inu is the logo of dogecoin and the tweet hints about dogecoin discussion in the upcoming SNL show on 8 May 2021.
He also posted another tweet which says that “Cryptocurrency is promising, but please invest with caution!” with a link to his interview. In that interview, he told that Dogecoin could be the future of Cryptocurrency. All these occurrences made dogecoin touch 70 cents and there is an ongoing trend to make it to 1 dollar, just 30 cents away.
During the SNL show, when asked what is Dogecoin? Musk replied that ‘it’s the future of the currency!’. It’s an unstoppable financial vehicle that’s going to take over the world, he added. He also referenced the popular ‘To the Moon’ catchphrase in conversation about dogecoin. Dogecoin investors call Elon Musk as ‘Dogefather’ and there are memes on Twitter addressing musk lifting doge price. But, despite his SNL show, the dogecoin started falling with a 30% low from the previous day. Many investors are panicking about this fall, but some investors are still holding strong and suggesting others to do so.
More about dogecoin
Though dogecoin is started as a joke to bitcoin, it has its popularity. There is a community on Reddit for dogecoin, which used to collect funds in the form of bitcoins for charitable purposes. For the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Reddit dogecoin community raised $30,000 to help send the Jamaican Bobsled team to Sochi, Russia. It made the dogecoin spread to the rest of the world. The story was also posted on popular news outlets like The Guardian, and Business Insider.
After that, another community started an initiative called “Doge4Kids” and collected $30,000. This initiative is to provide service dogs to children with special needs. In addition to these, there were many charity works done in the name of dogefunds. Charity: Water Project to build clean water facilities in Kenya, raising funds for Indian luger, Shiva Keshavan to enter 2014 Sochi Olympic Competition, to fund in sponsoring the Wise’s Vehicle, 98 Moonrocket, to name a few charitable works of doge. It also gained support from big celebrities like Carole Baskin, Gene Simmons, Mia Khalifa, and Snoop Dogg.
On the other hand, scammers also started taking advantage of the dogecoin. Ryan Kennedy, who introduced himself as Alex Green, the CEO, and the founder of Moolah, a Cryptocurrency Exchange firm in the United Kingdom, scammed around $1.8 million worth of bitcoins. He initially gained trust from people by giving away dogecoins liberally and by initiating many charity communities. He placed a perfect target and escaped with a large sum of money. This is still being the biggest scam in the history of dogecoins.
In the conclusion, dogecoin is a fun cryptocurrency and if one wants to invest in it, make sure you don’t risk your life. In this contest, we need to remember the words of the dogefather, Elon Musk — “First of all, I think people should not invest their life savings in cryptocurrency. To be clear, I think that’s unwise”.
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