Counting Dogecoin's five epic surges

Dogecoin, a popular community-active cryptocurrency, hit a new all-time high on January 28 after a 10-fold surge. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant moments in Dogecoin’s history.

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by Australian entrepreneur Jackson Palmer and software engineer Billy Markus. It was a mockery of the various alternative cryptocurrencies or "altcoins" that were flooding the crypto world at the time. The project revolved around the symbolic Japanese Shibu Inu as the avatar "doge", and this self-deprecating community culture was particularly popular among early cryptocurrency adopters.

Dogecoin daily price chart

Dogecoin has experienced wild price swings, driven primarily by its reputation as a fun dog-themed cryptocurrency. TikTok challenges and endorsements from major celebrities have contributed to its price increases in the past.

1. The cryptocurrency boom in 2017

Dogecoin’s first major rally began around March 10, 2017, as a significant increase in retail investment began to pour into the cryptocurrency market for the first time, lifting all other tokens or altcoins. In a period of more than 70 days, the “funny” cryptocurrency rose more than 1,890% from $0.00021 to a peak of $0.0042 on May 21. This shattered the previous all-time high of $0.0021 and caused the market capitalization to surge by $423 million. Shortly thereafter, Dogecoin fell 75% in a two-week market correction that affected all cryptocurrencies.

2. Bitcoin breaks through $19,783, boosting Dogecoin

By November 2017, massive buying momentum returned to the cryptocurrency market, with huge trading volumes pushing Bitcoin to heights of $19,783. The global cryptocurrency market cap reached a staggering $830 billion and sent small-cap projects like Dogecoin parabolic.

On January 7, 2018, Dogecoin surpassed $0.02, 380% higher than its previous high. Its market capitalization at this stage is $1.6 billion. However, this was very short-lived, and within eight days, the price rose by more than 70% to $0.0047.

3. Market rebound in the 2018 bear market

On April 14, 2018, just before the entire market entered the "crypto winter" and fell to the previous low, the vast majority of cryptocurrency projects made a short recovery. In three days, Dogecoin rose from $0.0020 to $0.0041, an increase of 103%. In comparison, Bitcoin only managed to achieve a 40% increase in the same month.

By this time, Dogecoin’s market capitalization had more than halved from its all-time high to $573 million.

4. Ethereum/Dogecoin Bridge Test in 2018

The first major Dogecoin rally that was largely unrelated to the rest of the Dogecoin market was in September 2018, during a system test of the Dogecoin/Ethereum bridge.

The blockchain bridge is conceived as a new update that will allow interoperability between the two blockchains. The announcement reignited community support for the project, and the price of Dogecoin rose 173% in 48 hours.

However, it later became apparent that there wasn’t enough money to continue developing the bridge due to the plummeting price of Ethereum (the main cryptocurrency of the Ethereum project), so the update was put on hold. Since then, there has been no mention of whether the bridge between Dogecoin and Ethereum will continue.

5. The craziness of WallStreetBets in 2021, Elon Musk’s call

On January 11, 2021, traditional financial markets were severely disrupted by a subprime group called WallStreetBets (aka WSB). These amateur stock traders decided to join forces with traditional financial institutions and pump some major hedge funds to bet on stocks that were falling in value, such as GameStop, BlackBerry, AMC, Nokia, and Bed Bath & Beyond.

On January 28, the WSB stock market frenzy spread to Dogecoin and fueled the largest cryptocurrency rally to date. In less than two days, Dogecoin surged to an all-time high of $0.087 on the Binance exchange, a gain of 1,100%. The rally was driven in part by a number of tweets, including one from Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and an avid Dogecoin fan.

Carole Baskin of Netflix’s “Tiger King” fame also posted a video expressing her support for the dog-themed cryptocurrency.