It was largely considered a joke on the cryptocurrency circuit, however anyone who bought Dogecoin will be the ones laughing now.
The digital currency was launched in 2013 and was named and branded after the iconic meme Doge.
While it hasn't been worth much in the past, Reddit has helped it spike by 500 per cent in value, according to Forbes.
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It has traditionally been worth fractions of a cent since its inception, however it went from being worth $0.007681 at 8 pm EST Wednesday (January 27) to more than $0.049 a day later.
Redditors have helped increase the value of the likes of GameStop, BlockBuster, and AMC by buying loads of stock and it appears Dogecoin has become their latest target.
It has seen large increases in the past thanks to a hilarious tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk that Dogecoin was going to take over the world.
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That exposure alone led to the cryptocurrency surging by 20 per cent in value.
But now it's seeing a massive spike because Reddit users have labeled it the GameSpot de jour.
Adrian Lee, a senior finance lecturer at the University of Technology in Sydney, told CNet: "It is a puzzle to me why Dogecoin is so highly valued.
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"Dogecoin is an easily replicable coin. I don't know how it distinguishes itself from Bitcoin. I really think it has to do with being established early.
"And also the dog."
It comes after Redditors threw their support behind GameSpot, an American video gaming retail company, after realising hedge funds were trying to short it, which meant they wanted to see the price go down.
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Redditors took on the hedge funds, like Melvin Capital Management, one of the biggest institutional shorters of the GameStop stock, and decided to buy loads of stock in the retailer.
This caused the stock price to surge, meaning the hedge funds firm would lose money - lot's of money.
Financial data analytics firm Ortex estimates that short-sellers have lost USD$70.87 billion on their investments. The company made this calculation through data collected from agent lenders, prime brokers, and broker-dealers.
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That's how it all started. But it is of course still going on and doesn't seem to be slowing down. This entire GameStop saga has had a massive impact on the stock market, to the extent that Melvin Capital Management ended up needing an investment of nearly USD$3 billion just to stay alive after GameStop first started to rocket upwards.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also recently confirmed that the US government is 'monitoring the situation', which suggests that this story is far from over.
Featured Image Credit: shibamint (Creative Commons)Topics: News, Cryptocurrency
