A joke cryptocurrency has come back from the dead in the space of several hours after fading into obscurity for months.
Dogecoin has been seemingly resurrected in the space of several hours after months of the meme cryptocurrency fading into obscurity.
The dog-themed joke cryptocurrency hit an all-time high in May last year and rose by over 3100 per cent in 2021.
However, it slipped off the crypto charts and its price slowed to a crawl — until now.
That’s all changed since the news broke on Tuesday morning AEDT that Tesla CEO Elon Musk — and a known dogecoin enthusiast — had bought Twitter.
Overnight Mr Musk, who is also the world’s richest man, struck a deal to buy Twitter for US$44 billion (A$61.4 billion).
Dogecoin traders are fully expecting Musk to allow dogecoin to be traded on Twitter and the price spiked accordingly.
At time of writing doge was trading for US$0.160040, up an eye-watering 21.8 per cent in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk.
Its transaction volume has risen by 932 per cent in the last day and the blockchain has scraped its way into the top 10 of all cryptocurrencies.
On Monday, Mr Musk added to the dogecoin buying frenzy considerably.
There were already rumours floating around that he was going to buy out Twitter, buoying doge investors.
However, he also weighed into a discussion where he shared his thoughts on how to improve dogecoin, which prompted fresh speculation that the blockchain might be integrated into Twitter once Musk had control.
Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus suggested on Monday “the more [dogecoin] can be used as a currency, the better,” saying it was ideal for ”tipping currency.”
He also pointed to an ethereum upgrade to improve dogecoin’s ”utility.”
“First one definitely, second is nice to have and third isn’t needed, [in my opinion], Musk replied.
Mr Musk has already indicated that things are going to change now that he owns Twitter.
Musk — a self-proclaimed “free-speech absolutist” — already has big plans to reform what he sees as the platform’s overzealous content moderation.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement released by Twitter.
“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.”
The publicly traded firm will now become a private company owned by Musk, who negotiated a purchase price of US$54.20 per share (A$75.55), Twitter said.
On Wall Street, Twitter stock was trading 5.9 per cent higher around 5.15am Tuesday (AEST).
Interestingly, the news of Musk’s takeover hasn’t impacted other cryptocurrencies in the top 10 quite as much as dogecoin.
Bitcoin is only up 1.5 per cent, ethereum is up by two and binance has only risen by 0.5 per cent.
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