Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally created in 2013 as a joke, has surged 131 percent since Oct. 4, the day Elon Musk announced his intention to close his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter after a months-long legal battle. Within a month, Dogecoin gained more than $10 billion in market cap on speculation Musk might incorporate the digital coin somehow in his revamping of Twitter.
On Nov. 1, Dogecoin rose 12 percent to a six-month high of $0.14 after Musk tweeted a textless Halloween image of a Shiba Inu dog wearing a T-shirt with a Twitter logo. Dogecoin’s sister meme cryptocurrency, Shiba Inu, rose 8 percent on Nov. 1.
This year has generally been bleak for cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin and Ethereum both down more than 55 percent, underperforming the S&P 500 Index’s 19 percent loss. The stock and cryptocurrency markets rebounded slightly in recent weeks, but the gain is nowhere near Dogecoin’s monstrous rally.
But the meme coin isn’t completely immune to actual economic events. Dogecoin fell nearly 7 percent this morning (Nov. 2) ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting to further raise interest rates to combat inflation. The central bank announced after the meeting in the afternoon it raised its benchmark rate by 0.75 percent as expected.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
