Dogecoin surges nearly 30% after Shiba Inu's explosive gains

Crypto dogs, it seems, like to run in packs.

Wednesday’s Shiba Inu price explosion stirred the Doge-pound into action—and the original dog-themed meme coin is stretching and flexing to remind investors of its own place in the market. In the past 24 hours, Dogecoin prices have jumped 28% as of 9:30 a.m. ET.

The Dogecoin rally started right around midnight ET on Thursday. Prices hovered in the 23-cent range for all of Wednesday, as Shiba Inu soared 80% over the course of the day. But as the calendar page turned, investors began to focus on Doge, which has since spiked as high as 33 cents.

It’s a far cry from Dogecoin’s height, of course. Back in May, the meme coin hit its high of 74 cents and the $1 target of Dogecoin evangelists seemed within sight. Then Elon Musk’s public dissing of the crypto on Saturday Night Live put an end to that rally.

Shiba Inu prices, meanwhile, continue to soar. The crypto is up another 30% in the past 24 hours, and while it’s off the highs it hit at midnight, it’s still up nearly 300% from five days ago.

Shiba Inu, though, isn’t accepted as currency anywhere in the real world at present. Dogecoin, at least, has that going for it. In May, Dallas Mavericks owner and TV personality Mark Cuban said the team would complete 6,000 Dogecoin transactions that month and praised the currency as one that people actually use vs. hold.

Dogecoin has been around for eight years, and for most of that time it 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 was flummoxed by its recent rise.

The SHIB coin was created last August and immediately promoted as a “Dogecoin killer.” Its founder, a mysterious person known only as Ryoshi, said its technology was “community driven” and wrote, “We have the ability to outpace the value of Dogecoin, exponentially, without ever crossing the $0.01 mark.”