How to explain the craze for “dog” currencies such as Shiba and Doge?

The Doge is a particular cryptocurrency. It was created in 2013 by engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer and was intended to be a “virtual currency for laughs”, in other words, it was doomed to make fun of people. cryptomonnaies. The name Doge was chosen in reference to the currency used in the video game Animal Crossing from Nintendo. Despite its reputation for lightness, a small community has nevertheless developed around the DogeCoin.

And then, on December 20, 2020, Elon Musk wrote a cryptic tweet: ” One word: Doge “. In the next half hour, the Doge’s price multiplied by 1,000%! In mid-May 2021, Elon Musk has relapsed. After announcing two months earlier that Tesla was going to accept payments in BTC (Bitcoin), the entrepreneur flip-flopped and said he was dropping BTC and taking position in favor of the Doge (Dogecoin) considered, according to him, more efficient and more respectful of theecology. Here again, a spectacular progression followed.

The Doge then ranked in the Top 10 cryptocurrencies. Another investor, Mark Cuban has done a great deal for the popularity of the Doge. Furthermore, Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum is on the board of Dogecoin, which may provide technical backing to what was originally a joke.

However, in the meantime, another currency with the effigy of a dog made talk about her. Launched in August 2020 by a man named Ryoshi, Shiba Inu’s Shib was positioned from the start as a “Dogecoin killer” and, with the image of a dog, the Japanese shiba as its symbol. During the previous year, its progression was spectacular: more than 90,000,000%.

It must be said that at the launch of the Shib, 50% of available assets were allocated to Vitalik Buterin’s portfolio. Following a first climb of the course, Buterin donated 10% of his Shib to help fight Covid-19 in India and undertook to “burn” (destroy) 40% of its Shib in order to help increase its price by making this currency scarce. His donation thus came to represent the equivalent of $ 1 billion.

At the end of October 2021, the progression of the Shiba continued, with a 10-fold increase in the last month. Result: this currency even came on October 27, to rank n ° 9 in terms of capitalization, thus exceeding – quite a symbol – the Doge. However, the next day, the latter regained the advantage.

The fact remains that, alone, these two cryptocurrencies share a capitalization of $ 80 billion. And for early-stage investors, this investment turned out to be more than juicy. As the magazine says Vice, a user who had placed $ 8,000 in this currency when it was only worth a fraction of a penny now finds himself with a jackpot of $ 5.7 million.

If such figures can make you dizzy, let’s be right. Equally spectacular sums have been lost by cryptocurrency investors and such cases, if easily blown out, remain fortunate exceptions.