Dogecoin: The cryptocurrency created as a joke is just the latest example of markets gone mad
The market capitalization of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke, is currently higher than that of The Gap and Under Armour (data from Koyfin). In total, the sum of all Dogecoin in existence is worth a little more than $10bn. And you thought the GameStop story was crazy.
Musk makes noise
Of course Elon is involved. The Tesla CEO has been tweeting about Dogecoin for almost 2 years, first sharing a satirical article on Dogecoin back in 2019. Since then he has tweeted intermittently about the cryptocurrency — but it was his more recent tweets, almost always in the format of memes, that have sent the total value of Dogecoin above $10bn as retail traders continue to latch onto the next "big thing" that they can speculate on.
While the Dogecoin stuff may be a joke, Musk has been busy actually buying Bitcoin — the most mainstream cryptocurrency. In an SEC filing yesterday Tesla revealed that they had bought~$1.5bn of Bitcoin, and that they anticipate accepting it as payment in the future. That announcement sent Bitcoin to an all-time high of $47,000.
PS: A month ago we charted the cryptocurrency landscape, check it out if you missed it.
