What's the word on Doge?

 Dogecoin Soars to Record Prices

Cole Ferrara

 This weeks trending Crypto Dogecoin hit a record high of 44.77 cents

    For this week, I chose to pick something that isn't new but its growth has been rather new overall the last few weeks, Dogecoin. Over the weekend this cryptocurrency reached its record high which stunned many people as they watched it grow. This currency is widely known as a "meme" on the internet because of the logo itself being a meme on the internet. While I don't own any of this, I am ever more fascinated as these new forms of currency are making news on the internet. This one in particular has also been so low in price that it fuels its own "joke" with people just wanting to own some because it is so cheap, to actually say "oh I own some dogecoin". As this has grown I have become more interested in following the price as it changes daily now, going both up and down, while hearing from friends about how much they own. 

    There really is not value proposition to this product besides that of the overall value proposition for cryptocurrency itself, in that it is a new decentralized form of currency that has taken flight over the past 5-10 years. What makes Doge different, is that it is seemingly fueled from social media posts from famous people such as Elon Musk as well as the masses of people talking about it. I believe the fascination and fuel comes purely from many people on the internet who are just generally talking about it, which in turn, has had the coin seen growth recently. 

Elon Musk tweet on April 14th

    

 A main fuel for this coin has been from Elon Musk, who has continued to poke at the masses on the internet with tweets such as this one below. With what happened with Gamestop and AMC recently, the term "to the moon" has been used often to talk about hoping the price of the stock or coin goes up. 

      

    Furthermore there have been more tweets revolving from so many people just in response to Elon's tweets such as people hoping that they can start to use Dogecoin in a way that Bitcoin is used, to purchase actual products. With the currency having so much value in the market, there are actual implications to this in the coming future, while all still being speculation of course with the price still being below a dollar. 

    While there is also general internet "hype" for this coin and the fun surrounding the buzz of it all, many are also worried that, and for good reason, that there really is not backing to this coin and it is just inflating itself from a point where there was no real intention of growth, rather just a joke as it started. The few coins that are doing well have had footing for a few years now and some like Bitcoin, are able to be used in purchasing many things online. So, the issue with doge is that people are worried that there really is now "plan" set forth essentially. 

    From a marketing standpoint it basically has sold itself alongside help from Elon Musk and general internet buzz, propped up by tweets and social media posts across the internet. The company behind Dogecoin now as it looks is trying to make an attempt to become more serious with updating their website and the wallet feature, as to keep up with the new buzz around it. I believe that there is always potential for growth in something that has this much talk going around about it, and from a marketing standpoint it is brilliant to see how things can start as a "meme" in today's world and grow into something much bigger. As I read some tweets from the official twitter for Doge, it looks as if they are attempting to go a bit more serious due to what it is growing into. I still wouldn't advise anyone to just dump all their money into this because just as things can blow up on the internet one day, they can immediately fail the next, as we have seen many times in the past. I think that most of the growth from things like this today are largely in part from the internet being so relevant in marketing in today's society, as we are seeing something that started as a joke, make some people a lot of money. 

    Regarding branding here, I would like to see where this company goes now that, while small, there is some traction. I think them re-designing the website and updating some features was a good move in the right direction as well because it shows them taking it a little more seriously now that there is a large amount of money flowing. The only thing I would do would be to honestly wait at this point, simply because there is not much else to do in the cryptocurrency world when the coin is still worth so little. As bitcoin grew, so did its opportunities outside of just being a type of currency. With doge, it is still worth so little and could drop and be worth nothing soon, so it just requires seeing how the market plays out before anything else gets any more serious. 

    My overall takeaway is just astonishment to how the internet continues to amaze me in both good and bad ways. Something that started out, and quite honestly still feels like a joke, has made people a ton of money just from a few tweets and some general internet traction. While this all hasn't been some company attempting to sell a new product, I still feel it can relate to marketing as a whole due to how "free" the marketing has been from just random people across the web. It in a sense can be seen as word of mouth marketing, which in many cases can and has been the strongest of the sort.