Reddit frenzy pumps up Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency started as a joke, by over 800% - CNBC

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• Reddit frenzy pumps up Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency started as a joke, by over 800% - CNBC
• Why Cryptocurrency Stocks Came Roaring Back Today - The Motley Fool
• Bitcoin price rises as second-biggest cryptocurrency ether hits all-time high - CNBC
• Cryptocurrency Volatility to Drop as Prices Rise, One River's Eric Peters Says - Bloomberg

Reddit frenzy pumps up Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency started as a joke, by over 800% - CNBC Posted: 28 Jan 2021 08:15 PM PST In this photo illustration, visual representations of digital cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Ripple are arranged. Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images News | Getty Images GUANGZHOU, China — Dogecoin, a digital coin originally founded as a joke, has soared over 800% after a Reddit board talked about making it the cryptocurrency equivalent of GameStop. The price of dogecoin stood at $0.070755 at around 12.01 p.m. Singapore, up over 800% from 24 hours before, according to Coingecko. It was not far off from its 24-hour high of $0.072330 earlier in the day. Dogecoin was created in 2013 based on the popular "doge" meme at the time which involved a Shiba Inu dog. The logo of dogecoin is a Shiba Inu. It was initially started as a joke but has since found a community. While it has taken a backseat to larger cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether in recent years, its resurgence in the last few days has been down to enthusiasm from a Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets. Like the group WallStreetBets, which was behind the GameStop rally, SatoshiStreetBets is looking to pump up cryptocurrencies. Satoshi is the name of the mysterious founder, or group of people, who developed bitcoin. At 12.03 p.m. Singapore time, dogecoin had added about $7.17 billion to its market capitalization or total value, in 24 hours, according to data from Coinmarket cap. Its total market cap stood at $8.2 billion, making it the ninth largest cryptocurrency. On Thursday, one poster claimed Doge is the "crypto gme". GME is the stock ticker for GameStop. Another post suggested taking doge to $1 a coin. The cryptocurrency has never been at $1. In 2013, when it began, it was trading around $0.000232. As the price of dogecoin rocketed, there have been some big dips in the price over the past few hours. Reddit users on the board are encouraging people not to sell and to "keep pushing." Elon Musk, the Tesla founder who previously tweeted about stocks before and sent them rising, has tweeted about dogecoin in the past and indicated in April 2019, that it was his "fav cryptocurrency." On Thursday, he tweeted out a picture of a magazine cover of "Dogue" — a play on popular fashion title "Vogue." Many users on Twitter and Reddit took that to mean Musk was throwing his support behind the doge rally. One Reddit user wrote: "Mr Musk is with us.. to the moon." The situation with dogecoin appears different from GameStop, however. The Reddit group WallStreetBets appears to be pushing the narrative of buying GameStop shares in order to create pain for hedge funds that are shorting or betting against the stock. By buying GameStop shares, a so-called short squeeze is created, forcing funds to cover their losses. This pushes the stock higher. Short sellers borrow shares to sell them, in order to buy them back at a lower price in future so that they can pocket the profit. But there is no such shorting dynamic from hedge funds at play with dogecoin. Instead, it appears a group of people are just trying to push the cryptocurrency higher to make money. One of the early posts on SatoshiStreetBets read: "Let's make DOGECOIN a thing. That's it, that's the post." Such activity is not new in the cryptocurrency space and has been going on for several years. In 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sounded the alarm on "pump-and-dump" schemes. This is when a certain cryptocurrency is hyped online and then more and more people buy. Those who were in early sell when the price goes high, but many will purchase near the top and lose money.

Why Cryptocurrency Stocks Came Roaring Back Today - The Motley Fool Posted: 28 Jan 2021 03:09 PM PST What happened Shares of cryptocurrency stocks and cryptocurrencies themselves came roaring back to life on Thursday. Both had seen steady declines over the last several days. Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ:MARA) did have company-specific news today. And MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) reported earnings after the market closed. But today's stock moves seem catalyzed by something else. Here's how much these cryptocurrency stocks soared today: Shares of Marathon Patent Group were up 12%. Shares of Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT) were up 11%. Shares of Bit Digital (NASDAQ:BTBT) were up 21%. Shares of MicroStrategy were up 7%. Shares of Canaan (NASDAQ:CAN) were up 12%. Shares of Future FinTech Group (NASDAQ:FTFT) were up almost 15%. And as of 4 p.m. EST, the price of bitcoin was up 3.6% over the previous 24-hour period, according to CoinDesk (and closer to 10% higher from 24-hour lows). Other cryptocurrencies were also rising.  What's going on, and what should investors do? Image source: Getty Images. So what Previously, I noted how the trading volumes for these cryptocurrency stocks had fallen as the GameStop short squeeze sparked a mania in the market. These previous darlings lost their luster as traders went searching for stocks that, like GameStop, had a lot of short interest. As trading volume rose with those stocks, volume fell with these cryptocurrency stocks. I don't think it's a coincidence that the price of bitcoin and shares of cryptocurrency stocks started rising right as brokerages like Robinhood started restricting trades on GameStop stock and others. The way I see it, traders are going to speculate on something. As they lose the ability to play the GameStop-and-company trade, they're turning back to stocks that have been good trades over the last three months. Just look at the returns (even after recent declines): Chart displays three-month returns. MARA data by YCharts. For this reason, it seems likely to me that traders are returning to these stocks. After all, Robinhood and other brokerages aren't restricting these cryptocurrency trades. The return of the traders helped these stocks come roaring back to life today. That said, the price of bitcoin is up today, which has an added benefit. Just as a reminder, companies like MicroStrategy, and now Marathon, hold bitcoin tokens on their balance sheets. So when bitcoin goes up, so does the paper value of these digital assets.  Companies like Riot Blockchain, Bit Digital, and Marathon mine bitcoin. As its price rises, their revenue potential does, too. But it comes with a catch. These companies typically have to buy more equipment as mining gets more competitive, which is why this is good for Canaan. Its business is cyclical, but as mining equipment comes back in high demand with the higher price of bitcoin, the company has a chance to return to growth. Of these companies, the one with the least direct relationship to bitcoin is Future FinTech, but there is some connection. This company is pursuing blockchain technology (although it was previously a fruit juice company). Specifically, it recently secured a patent that allows bitcoin to be an accepted form of payment online. To an extent, it's reasonable to assume that the more bitcoin rises, it's possible that it could be used more often as a form of payment. That's why Future FinTech is up today along with the price of bitcoin. Image source: Getty Images. Now what As much as ever before, I believe investors need to be fixated on the business fundamentals of the companies they own. There's so much noise right now that sound judgment is easily clouded. Trading volumes will swing. Bitcoin will be volatile. But we're investing in businesses for the long term. And every now and then we get updates into how those are doing. That's where mental energy should be spent. Like for example, today Marathon announced it has given a grant to bitcoin developer Jonas Schnelli to develop applications for the bitcoin blockchain network. That's not immediately material for the company; it's long-term business prospects will still boil down to mining bitcoin, reducing energy costs, selling bitcoin at opportune moments, and being an adept capital allocator. But the Schnelli grant is worth exploring if you're a shareholder. Will this increase bitcoin's adoption? Will it have a good return on investment for Marathon? Then there's MicroStrategy. It reported fourth-quarter earnings after the close, and revenue was down 1.7% year over year. It's just the latest lackluster quarter for the company. Investors hadn't given MicroStrategy much thought until it purchased 70,784 bitcoin tokens in recent months (and the value has roughly doubled since then, by the way). But in the fourth-quarter press release, management said that its unique bitcoin strategy is making it a thought leader and generating interest in its technology products. Could bitcoin actually cause MicroStrategy to start winning new business? It's worth monitoring in quarters to come. The point is, day by day, there will always be something to distract long-term investors from the things that really matter. Part of growth for an investor is learning to tune out things that are here today but gone tomorrow.

Bitcoin price rises as second-biggest cryptocurrency ether hits all-time high - CNBC Posted: 25 Jan 2021 06:23 AM PST Ethereum and Bitcoin coins. Getty Images Ether, the digital token of the Ethereum blockchain, notched a new all-time high of $1,476 early Monday morning. The cryptocurrency climbed 6.2% to a price of $1,415 at about 9:15 a.m. ET. Altcoins, or alternative cryptocurrencies, have been known to rally in times of strength for bitcoin. Ether's latest price movement was attributed to increased use of Ethereum — its underlying network that is undergoing a major upgrade — and interest from institutional investors in crypto. "Ethereum's current rise cold shoulders the sceptics, many of whom were quick to denounce crypto when bitcoin recently fell from its $40,000 high," said Simon Peters, cryptoasset analyst at online investment platform eToro. "With a whole range of logistical improvements to the Ethereum network in the works, increased institutional inflows, and more and more developers building on the platform, the future is bright for Ethereum. I believe that a price of $2,500 by the end of the year is very feasible. As with all crypto, however, there will be bumps along the way." Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value, has had a wild start to 2021. After quadrupling last year, bitcoin's price briefly topped $40,000 for the first time on Jan. 7. It's down 17% from its all-time high, but still up over 17% since the start of the year. Advocates of the digital coin say it's benefited from heightened institutional demand and its perception as a safe haven asset similar to gold. But skeptics are worried bitcoin is in a bubble.

Cryptocurrency Volatility to Drop as Prices Rise, One River's Eric Peters Says - Bloomberg Posted: 28 Jan 2021 07:18 AM PST [unable to retrieve full-text content]Cryptocurrency Volatility to Drop as Prices Rise, One River's Eric Peters Says  Bloomberg

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