How Elon Musk’s new job could boost the joke cryptocurrency dogecoin

Dogecoin, the “accidental” cryptocurrency launched as a joke in 2013 and championed by Elon Musk, has almost doubled in price after Donald Trump’s election victory.
The value of the digital currency is up by 88 per cent in the week thanks to numerous tailwinds, most notably an expectation of lighter regulation of the sector, which has also fuelled a rally in bitcoin to a record high above $87,000.
“Doge”, as it is known among enthusiasts, enjoyed a further jump after Musk, the owner of X, suggested that the government division he has been appointed to run, the Department of Government Efficiency, shared its initials with the coin.
• Bitcoin breaches $80,000 as Trump vows to ease restrictions
On the campaign trail this year, Trump promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet”. He also said he would create a strategic bitcoin stockpile and sack Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has begun legal action against firms under existing financial laws.
Dogecoin, which describes itself as “the people’s cryptocurrency”, was created by Billy Markus, the IBM developer, and Jackson Palmer, the Adobe data scientist, to parody the online cult around cryptocurrencies.
It is named in honour of a Japanese Shiba Inu whose photo went viral at the time, with speech bubble captions added in Comic Sans font to appeal to a generation of meme traders. It is, according to its official website, “at its heart … the accidental crypto movement that makes people smile”.
Musk, 53, has also been a long-time champion of dogecoin. In 2022, he allowed people to buy Tesla brand merchandise with the currency and said that SpaceX, his space exploration company, would also accept it as payment.
The coin hit a peak of 67 cents during the meme-stock frenzy as locked-down day traders also sent the price of GameStop, an unloved US video games retailer, up precipitously.
Doge’s value crashed as rising interest rates ushered in a collapse across the crypto sector, dubbed the “crypto winter”, but has been regaining ground rapidly over recent weeks as interest rate expectations lowered. Backers hope “light-touch” regulation will ignite the sector again.
Gains have pared back from Tuesday’s price of 47 cents — a three-year high — to drop by 8.1 per cent to 37 cents on Wednesday, though it is still up by more than 200 per cent on the month.