As the price of bitcoin slumps over the weekend, many loyal advocates of the steadily rising “memecoin”, Dogecoin, have been fueled with even more passion to push their crypto of choice to mainstream relevancy. As evidenced by their successful petitioning of April 20 to be dubbed as “Doge Day”, who knows what else it’s capable of?
Introduction
Since the start of the year, the past few months have seen bitcoin take a significant nosedive with grave consequences unlike it has ever seen since the infamous 2017 boom that kicked off a new generation of wealthy investors and millionaires.
However, as multiple cryptocurrencies seem to struggle to get back on their feet, there is one such that has their hounds planted firmly on the ground: Dogecoin.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency plunged to signature depths as much as 15% on Sunday, mere days after reaching a record of $64,869. However, it quickly redeemed itself on Monday morning where it was trading around $56,200, well off recent highs of close to $65,000.
In comparison, one of its frequent competitors and the second-biggest crypto tokens following BTC, Ether, stood at around $2,180, below recent highs of more than $2,500. It also dropped as much as 18% to below $2,000 before also paring losses.
All these seemingly volatile changes to established currencies are not singular experiences this year alone. When Bitcoin saw a large gain at the end of 2017, many new investors were trying to get into the market in hopes of laying the groundwork.
While it was too expensive to get into Bitcoin and Ethereum after such large gains just yet, they then looked into altcoins that could see a similar rise and give a huge return on investment, for significantly half the asking price.
Altcoins such as Ripple, Dogecoin, and NEM have seen exponential increases in market cap due to the influx of new investors carried over from BTC and LTC. The main component to their accessibility and appeal is the low cost of their valuations. Market share of Bitcoin once exceeded 60 percent but dropped to 40 percent when investment into altcoins grew as more investors began investing money into cryptocurrencies.
The increasing mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency as a viable payment solution has catapulted not only bitcoin, but other then lesser-known tokens to their respective record highs.
It is also perhaps noting that when companies like PayPal and Square state their vocal support of such currencies, even going so far as to recognize them as legitimate payment models, interest in the crypto scene rocketed skyward.
Dogecoin, in particular, is an altcoin that continued to take the broader market by storm as it continues to trend exponentially this year. On Monday, it rose to just as much as 35% to an all-time high above $0.41 before paring its gains, as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies stabilized after sharp falls at the weekend.
“The crypto world is waking up with a bit of a sore head today,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo.
“Dogecoin’s 100% Friday rally was ‘peak party,’ after the Bitcoin record and Coinbase listing earlier in the week. Euphoria was in the air. And usually in the crypto world, there’s a price to pay when that happens.”
Conclusion
While the term “bitcoin” may have long grown into a household name recognized and exclusively partaken by the rich and elite who can afford high-risk investments, this year has shown us an emergence in common people investments; such as reigning memecoin Dogecoin and the GameStop stock frenzy debacle.
Both of these instances were spearheaded by a joint collision of intelligent, middle-class folk who were looking to expel some internalized aggression towards the more high-collar and on the nose trading mechanisms that fell upon bitcoin and other higher-value stocks.
Just like how 2020 was the year of novel health surprises, 2021 might just very well turn out to be the same for the finance industry.
About the Author
Pamela Rhyan is a writer for The European Business Review. She crafts timely blog pieces about trending business acumen, changing leadership dynamics, emerging finance and technology trends, and how these spaces intersect from a millennial’s perspective. She also works as an editor and content strategist to the sister publications of The European Business Review.
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