DOGECOIN CRYPTOCURRENCY IS LATEST ‘MEME’ CRAZE

Dogecoin, the digital currency named after a dog,” had its day.

What happened

After fans of the cryptocurrency touted April 20, long an unofficial holiday for marijuana devotees, as “Doge Day,” Dogecoin failed to come close to the $1 target that supporters hoped to reach and was falling in late afternoon trading Tuesday. The goal may have sounded like a low hurdle when compared against the $50,000 or $60,000 a bitcoin is worth, depending on the day. But Dogecoin has already had an astonishing ascent from the roughly half of a cent that it was fetching at the start of the year.

Dogecoin (pronounced dohjcoin) has leaped to roughly 33 cents and is flirting with a 7,000% gain for 2021 so far. That towers over the roughly 10% return for the U.S. stock market, which itself is getting criticism for rising too high. Collectively, dogecoins have a total market value of about $42 billion, according to Coindesk. That puts it in the same neighborhood as Chipotle Mexican Grill and ebay.

‘Meme stock’ surge

Supporters of Dogecoin are trying to help it shed its image as

a joke cryptocurrency and get it seen as a way to make fast and easy transactions, though few retailers are accepting it so far. It’s also attracting buyers who want to get in on the next “meme” investment after watching the stock of Gamestop suddenly soar more than 1,600% in January. That surge was triggered by a band of smaller-pocketed investors communicating online, resulting in life-changing profits for those who timed it right. And Dogecoin buyers are now using some of the same slogans, promising to take its price“to the moon,” for example.

A word of caution

Critics, though, say Dogecoin’s rise is another example of the fever to buy the next big thing that’s been pushing prices up across investments, and that people buying in now may be setting themselves up for pain. Even cryptocurrencies that are more widely accepted and seen as serious are very volatile, with huge swings in price, up and down.

RICHARD DREW/AP Dogecoin has leaped to roughly 33 cents, flirting with a 7,000% gain for 2021.