Dogecoin price surges despite Coinbase still not offering trades
Meme-inspired cryptocurrency is also not available on other popular trading platforms like eToro
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Your support makes all the difference.Dogecoin’s latest price surge means its value has now risen by more than 20,000 per cent since this time last year, despite still not being listed on several popular exchanges and trading platforms.
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which made history by becoming a publicly traded company this week, has more than 56 million verified users around the world, though none have been able to profit from dogecoin’s astonishing price rally.
The bitcoin rival is also not offered on eToro, which describes itself as “the world’s leading social trading platform”, nor through the popular online bank account Revolut.
All three platforms offer several other alternative crypto assets to their customers, including ethereum (ether), bitcoin cash and cardano (ADA).
Customers expressed their frustrations on social media on Friday, as dogecoin’s market cap briefly peaked above $55 billion (£40bn) on Friday, ranking it among the top five most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world.
One tweet, stating simply, “Retweet if you think Coinbase should list dogecoin”, received more than 5,000 retweets.
Another Twitter user wrote: “Just imagine when it gets listed on Coinbase and Elon Musk finally allows you to buy a Tesla with dogecoin. Insane upside potential.”
Dogecoin was created in 2013 by software engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus as a “tongue-in-cheek cryptocurrency” aimed at poking fun of the nascent market.
The cryptocurrency borrows several key features to bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology but there are some fundamental differences that set it apart.
Unlike bitcoin, which has a finite supply of 21 million units, dogecoin has no limit to the number of coins in circulation.
Investors are therefore not attracted by dogecoin’s potential to be a stable store of value, as they are with bitcoin. Instead, the price rises are often prompted by relatively arbitrary incidents, such as memes shared by technology billionaire Elon Musk.
The SpaceX and Tesla CEO reshared a meme on Friday of a Shiba Inu dog, whose popular 2013 meme inspired the creation of dogecoin, covering the global financial system in a dust cloud.
Earlier this year, Mr Musk revealed that he had bought some dogecoin for his infant son so that he could be a “toddler hodler”.
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