Its mascot, a shiba inu dog, was a popular meme in its own right when Dogecoin was created.
Given its history, it seems fitting that Dogecoin fans want to declare April 20 as Doge Day.
For one thing, the date 4/20 is a play on 420, a popular nickname for marijuana. It is also widely known as “Weed Day.”
For another, it is yet another joke that caused DOGE’s price to spike — briefly, this time, to $0.425, slightly more than a penny away from its April 16 all-time high of $0.437. As recently as April 13, DOGE was $0.07. Its traders’ goal is $1.
#Doge420 and #DogeDay have been trending on Twitter. Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken’s Happy #DogeDay tweet compared the year-to-date performance of DOGE — 6,800% — to commodities including crude oil (29%) and gold (6%) as well as the Nasdaq (8%) and S&P 500 (12%).
All of which is fitting for a cryptocurrency created as a joke. Dogecoin has become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization — $54 billion at the time of writing — largely based on its popularity as a meme rather than its utility as a token. It also spiked after getting caught up in the r/WallStreetBets GameStop saga.
Its mascot, a shiba inu dog, was a popular meme in its own right when Dogecoin was created.
A Helping Paw from 'Dogecoin's CEO'
Then there’s the 420 history of Dogecoin’s biggest supporter — or at least its biggest pumper — Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has delighted in tweeting Doge memes that have generally caused its price to spike (or drop). For instance, in March he announced that he bought his son X Æ A-12 some Dogecoin so he could be a “toddler hodler.”
In 2018, Musk paid a $40 million fine and was forced to step down as Tesla’s chairman by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over a tongue-in-cheek tweet announcing that he was taking the electric car maker private at $420 per share.
On April 15, DOGE doubled from $0.12 to $0.24 after Musk tweeted, “Doge barking at the moon.” That’s on the heels of his April 1 tweet saying SpaceX “is Going to Put a Literal Dogecoin on the Literal Moon” — which caused a 28% price hike.
