Much wow: Dogecoin rockets 48% to record high after eToro and Gemini exchanges add the token
- Dogecoin jumped by close to 50% on Tuesday, to an all-time high of more than $0.59.
- The jump followed eToro's move to add the cryptocurrency for its 20 million global users.
- The Oakland Athletics baseball team also said it had started accepting dogecoin for tickets.
Dogecoin jumped by close to 50%, to an all-time high near $0.60, on Tuesday after the trading platforms eToro and Gemini added the meme cryptocurrency, opening it up to tens of millions of users.
The Shiba Inu-themed digital asset was also boosted by a break into Major League Baseball, with the Oakland Athletics accepting dogecoin as payment for tickets.
Dogecoin was up 48.1% as of 10:20 a.m. ET, to an all-time high of $0.59082, according to CoinGecko.
The meme cryptocurrency, which was started as a joke in 2013, has soared by more than 23,000% over the past year and by 950% over the past 30 days. Its market capitalization stood at more than $76 billion on Tuesday.
Dogecoin has ridden a cryptocurrency wave that analysts say has been driven by huge amounts of stimulus from governments and central banks during the COVID-19 crisis.
Celebrity endorsements have also been central to the rise of dogecoin. In particular, regular tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk have helped support the asset.
But eToro's decision to add dogecoin trading to its platform sparked the latest leg higher. The brokerage is looking to expand its offerings as it prepares to go public via a special-purpose acquisition company in a $10.4 billion deal.
eToro said it had added dogecoin because of strong customer demand, with millennial and Gen Z investors having warmed to the irreverent cryptocurrency in defiance of mainstream financial opinion. The exchange said its 20 million global registered users would now be able to invest in the token.
The crypto exchange Gemini announced later on Tuesday that it would follow suit. "Deposits are now open for DOGE. Trading for DOGE will open shortly," the company said in a statement.
Optimism about dogecoin also grew after Oakland's MLB team said it had started accepting dogecoin as payment. Oakland A's President Dave Kaval said on Twitter that the team had already processed dogecoin transactions, which he said were the first in MLB history.
eToro sang dogecoin's praises in a statement on Monday, describing it as "one of the fastest blockchain networks to transact on, thanks to its one-minute block intervals."
But many analysts have told potential investors to be very careful with dogecoin and other so-called altcoins, arguing that their lack of use cases and wild volatility make them highly risky investments.