Dogecoin was started as a joke. It was a digital currency that was designed to be worthless. But that hasn’t stopped it from creating at least one billionaire.
The Wall Street Journal reports that an unknown entity currently holds roughly 28% of the Dogecoin in circulation, a holding that’s worth $2.1 billion.
Dogecoin has been around for eight years, and for most of that had a value of half of one cent—tops. It’s a sarcastic currency. Ten thousand new Dogecoins are programmed to be issued every minute for the rest of eternity, meaning the value will never hold. It’s a cryptocurrency that’s meant to always get cheaper. Even the creator of the coin is flummoxed by its recent rise.
Then Elon Musk got in on the joke, talking about it on his Twitter account. And other online celebrities began talking it up as well.
Given the skyrocketing value of Bitcoin, Dogecoin has seen an escalation of its own, jumping to roughly five cents. (Yes, it doesn’t compare to $50,000, but a 900% jump is nothing to sneeze at.)
It is, of course, entirely possible that the account holder of this Dogecoin is not an individual. It’s common for crypto exchanges to hold big wallets on behalf of their customers. The inherent anonymous nature of cryptocurrency accounts makes it impossible to say.
Whoever or whatever owns the account, though, it currently holds 38.6 billion Dogecoin and has been buying since February 2019.
The Journal notes that the account has also frequently bought 28.061971 Dogecoins. That could be a nod to Elon Musk, whose birthday is June 28, 1971.
