You may have noticed on your social media feeds lately that people are excited about the rise of dogecoin, a cryptocurrency linked to a meme of a Shiba Inu dog.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke and was the first cryptocurrency to be based on an internet meme.
These days no one is laughing at the rising value of the coin. At the time of writing this story, the value of one Dogecoin was just over 61 cents. That's up nearly 100% over the last week.
It may not seem like much, but if you purchased them when they were 5 cents in February 2021, or when they were valued at $0.00026 in 2013, you'd be very pleased with their recent growth.
Bitcoin is, by far, the most popular and successful cryptocurrency ever.
Invented in 2008, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that can be sent from user to user through the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for a central bank.
One year ago, the price of one bitcoin was $8,978. Today it is $57,402.
Though most people purchase cryptocurrency for investment reasons, there are some businesses that accept them as payment for goods and services.
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In 2019, Smart Crypto Cafe opened on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach.
The coffee shop has permanently closed since then, but it offered cryptocurrency enthusiasts the opportunity to network with other like-minded people and purchase coffee and snacks using cryptocurrency. They also accepted more traditional methods of payment (cash and credit cards).
In March 2021, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced his team would allow fans to purchase tickets and merchandise using Dogecoin. Days later, Cuban announced his franchise had "done more than 20,000" dogecoin in transactions.
The @dallasmavs have done more than 20,000 #Dogecoin in transactions, making us the LARGEST #DOGECOIN MERCHANT IN THE WORLD ! We thank all of you and can only say that if we sell another 6,556,000,000 #DOGECOIN worth of Mavs merch, #dogecoin will DEFINITELY HIT $1 !!!🚀🚀🚀
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 6, 2021
Though it's uncommon to visit businesses that accept payment via cryptocurrency, that may change in the future.
Eric M. Cornell is managing director and a private wealth adviser with the Cornell Group in Palm Beach Gardens.
"Until there is some type of stability with any type of currency, it would be considered a speculative investment. I believe that, in the long run, cryptos could potentially find their way into day-to-day purchases," he said.
There are thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence and their value can be quite volatile. For this reason, they are not generally recommended for investments by financial advisors.
While we don't have a recommendation on which coins potential investors should consider, some of the most popular ones aside from Bitcoin (BTC) include Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Binance Coin (BNB), and Cardano (ADA), just to name a few.
You can buy and sell cryptocurrency through exchange platforms like Coinbase and Gemini.
For those who desire to get in early on the next bitcoin or dogecoin, how do you know which cryptocurrency will be the next hot thing? Unfortunately, there's no way to tell.
"Trends in social media/recognition have a strong impact on any investment these days (we call it headline risk), but anticipating what will be the next trend is very difficult in speculative investments," Cornell said.
A Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets is looking to pump up the value of dogecoin, similar to the way the Reddit group WallStreetBets was behind the recent GameStop rally.
When a Forbes reporter asks me about #dogecoin and whether it’s a bad look for crypto when people are buying it pic.twitter.com/YGs27Vdsxo
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) February 8, 2021
