What made this ‘joke’ cryptocurrency surge 800% in 24 hours

Dogecoin or DOGE, which in 2013 was created as a joke or meme to the world’s oldest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, surged over seven times in a span of 24 hours to hit a market capitalization of $7 billion. At this valuation, the crypto asset can figure in the list of top 100 Indian companies, and even beat the likes of Bandhan Bank, Lupin and Cadila Healthcare.

The breakneck rally in DOGE has propelled it among the 10 top cryptocurrencies in the world. Bitcoin is the world’s biggest crypto asset with a market cap of nearly $600 billion. In comparison, India’s most valuable company, TCS Ltd, commanded a valuation of $165 billion as of Thursday’s closing.

DOGE was trading at $0.051881, up by 357.1% at around 2.15 pm (IST), as per data available with cryptocurrency tracker CoinGecko.