Dogecoin returned most of its early gains and was slightly higher on Wednesday as the cryptocurrency continued its volatile trading.
The digital coin, which is based on a Shiba Inu meme, traded at around 59 cents in midday trading, up about 4% from trading near 67 cents earlier in the day. Dogecoin broke over 50 cents per share for the first time on Tuesday.
This week’s surge precedes Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s planned appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Musk is a fan of Dogecoin, and the potential for him to talk about the currency on national television could increase demand.
Dogecoin was launched as a hoax in 2013, at a time when the cryptocurrency boom was still in its infancy and a deluge of small, primitive coins was emerging. Doge has regained popularity, apparently boosted by the attention of billionaires like Musk and Mark Cuban and easy access through the free trading app Robinhood.
“I’m worried that as soon as the enthusiasm wanes, there will be no more developers there, no more institutions. But it has precisely this nickname of the popular coin,” said Michael Novogratz of Galaxy Digital on “Squawk Box”.
“If you think about the whole theory of what this crypto revolution is, there is something pure about what Dogecoin has done,” Novogratz said. “It’s a bit of a middle finger for the system.”
Crypto firm Coinbase lists Dogecoin with a market cap of $ 78 billion based on a simple multiplication of price and coins created. On paper, this is higher than the publicly traded Coinbase’s market cap of around $ 56 billion.
The volatility in Dogecoin did not seem to affect the larger cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin price rose 5% while ether fell slightly.
Disclosure: “Saturday Night Live” is a television show hosted by NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” in which Mark Cuban is a panelist.
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