After settling down for a week or so, Dogecoin is making a push to the moon once again.
The cryptocurrency is up more than 11% in mid-morning trading and has surged as much as 20% in the past 24 hours after a pair of financial heavyweights namechecked the currency that no one was meant to take seriously. And, of course, one of them was Elon Musk.
The Tesla founder, who delights in mentioning the crypto and whipping traders into occasional frenzies, referred to himself as The Dogefather in a tweet. He also promoted his upcoming hosting gig on Saturday Night Live. (Musk has referred to Dogecoin regularly on Twitterover the past four months.)
Also talking up the currency was Dallas Mavericks owner and TV personality Mark Cuban, who said the team would complete 6,000 Dogecoin transactions this month. Cuban praised the currency as one that people actually use rather than hold. He also pointed to Robinhood as one of its biggest blocking points.
Robinhood quickly replied it was working on a program that will let people withdraw crypto holdings and spend them.
At 10:45 a.m. ET, Dogecoin was worth roughly 30 cents, 33% below its all-time high of 45 cents.
Dogecoin has been around for 8 years, and for most of that it has had a value of half-a-cent—tops. 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.
That hasn’t prevented it from becoming a favorite of traders. Enthusiasts declared April 20 “Doge Day” and had hoped to push the crypto’s value to $1. (It instead lost value that day.)
At least one person or company might be making real money on the Dogecoin surge, though. In February, word escaped that an unknown entity currently holds roughly 28% of the dogecoin in circulation—some 38.6 billion Dogecoin.
Year to date, Dogecoin is up—brace yourself—2,613%. On Wednesday alone, it has increased 57% in value.