Dog-themed crypto surged Monday as private investors’ enthusiasm for the market grew.
This comes after Ethereum works toward its software upgrade.
“Dogecoin is up about 14 percent over the past five days, while Shiba Inu has gained almost 40 percent,” according to pricing data compiled by Bloomberg.
Dogecoin has been backed by influential people such as Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk, entrepreneur Marc Cuban and US rapper Snoop Dogg.
Bitcoin is valued at around $25,000 while Ether hovers at about $2,000, amid its software upgrade, known as Merge, expected around September 15 – according to co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
“Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have both broken out over the weekend, clear evidence that the retail investor is back,” Hayden Hughes, chief executive of social-trading platform Alpha Impact, told Bloomberg in an interview.
Hughes added there is “optimism that both coins will gain like Ethereum as they are due for upgrades as well.”
The crypto market has recovered slighly with its total market cap valued at around $1.2 trillion.
The market dropped to around $875 billion as of June 19, according to data from CoinGecko.
Lower-than-expected inflation prints out of the US last week boosted hopes that the Federal Reserve might be able to ease off its pace of rate hikes, helping riskier assets like crypto, Bloomberg said, adding Ethereum received support after a final test stage before the Merge upgrade.
However, the meme-coin trend “doesn’t have the depth of market at times like Ether or Bitcoin,” Cici Lu, chief executive officer at consulting firm Venn Link Partners told Bloomberg.
“When a bit of demand comes through, they hit a liquidity pocket and fly up, drawing in more speculators,” Liu added.
Alpha Impact’s Hughes warned, “Alpha Impact’s traders have been on the sidelines, waiting to see if institutional investors, who tend to trade midweek, pick up on this trend.”
