TGIF: Of Dogecoin, Bitcoin Rises, and Viral Tweets

What do a Shiba Inu dog, Elon Musk and cryptocurrencies have in common? A lot apparently.

It all started out as little more than an innocuous joke back in 2013 when two software engineers created a fun digital coin and decided to emblazon it with an image of the cute canine of doge meme fame. Dogecoin was created and the rest is history. At the end of 2020, Elon Musk tweeted the simple phrase “One word: Doge” and the coin’s value instantly increased by almost 20%.

The digital coin has now made a big comeback to the spotlight this time thanks to Reddit. The value of the coin suddenly increased by a mind-blowing 837% over a period of only 24 hours. It is suspected that the by now notorious Reddit group WallStreetBets is responsible for the sudden increase.

The group has recently created an unprecedented market move by rallying behind struggling companies like GameStop, BlackBerry, the movie theatre chain AMC and Nokia. In fact, the almost perplexed Finnish mobile phone company released a statement where it stated that it is not aware of what might have caused the sudden increase in value. It seems like WallStreetBets has single-handedly outsmarted the Wall Street hedge funds that were shorting these companies.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s iconic tweets show no signs of stopping and it could also be said, perhaps, that there is now a new Twitter king (Donald Trump who we hear you say?). Apart from participating in the GameStop frenzy with his “Gamestonk!!” tweet, the billionaire also posted a tweet about the hand-made goods platform Etsy.

After purchasing a knitted ‘Marvin the Martian’ helmet for his dog, Musk stated “I kinda love Etsy”, the platform’s stock value increased within a few minutes by approximately 2.2%. Musk has also recently changed his Twitter bio description to a simple “#bitcoin” and immediately caused an uproar. Indeed, as of Friday 29th January, the Bitcoin’s value increased by a substantial 14% and is now trading in the region of $37,000.

It is a very peculiar time for the markets – billionaires and Reddit groups have become key market figures while traditional institutions seem to be losing their influence. Developments on this front are all very fresh but we are curious to see if this is a bubble that might burst or a more permanent change.