Dogecoin was soaring Wednesday morning after crypto platform Coinbase laid the groundwork for the meme asset to soon trade on the U.S.’s largest digital-asset exchange.
”Starting immediately, we will begin accepting inbound transfers of DOGE to Coinbase Pro,” the company wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
”Trading will begin on or after 9 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) Thursday June 3, if liquidity conditions are met,” the company said.
At last check, dogecoin DOGEUSD, +22.61% was changing hands at 43 cents, up 33%, on CoinDesk.
Last month, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the crypto-focused company would list dogecoin on its trading platform, largely because it was missing out on revenues as rivals to Coinbase offered the social-media driven crypto on their websites amid a stratospheric rise in its value.
Dogecoin prices have been in a major down trend after hitting a record near 75 cents following the appearance of crypto bull and big dogecoin supporter Elon Musk as the host of NBC’s comedy show “Saturday Night Live” last month.
Even with the recent slump, however, doge prices are up nearly 9,000% in the year to date.
Such gains are part of the reason speculation around dogecoin has been rampant. By comparison, traditional assets are seeing much more mundane returns. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.13% is up nearly 13% so far in 2021, as of Tuesday’s close. The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.05% has gained nearly 12% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.09% is looking at a more than 6.5% gain thus far in the year. Gold GC00, +0.14%, which is often cast as a rival to major crypto, was up 0.6% in the year to date.
Bullish talk about dogecoin by Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Inc. TSLA, -0.21% and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., had been a rallying point for the doge community, which had been eagerly anticipating his appearance on ”SNL,” but dogecoin owners who had hoped his mention of the digital currency on TV would boost its price toward $ 1 have so far been left disappointed.
Musk remains a staunch advocate of the crypto that was kicked off in 2013 as a lighthearted riff off the proliferation of alternatives to bitcoin.
Musk on Tuesday tweeted this after Coinbase’s announcement of dogecoin on its pro platform.
Musk also pushed out this tweet:
On social-media platform Reddit, dogecoin supporters were ebullient at the Coinbase news, even if it had been widely expected.