Elon Musk-backed Dogecoin now more valuable than Nigerian stock market

The underdog in cryptocurrency market, Dogecoin, has now become more valuable than Nigerian stock market, which is the biggest investment market within the country.

Since January, the cryptocurrency had been gradually making its way up among the most valuable digital assets, and now sits comfortably on the list of five most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world.

Dogecoin, which last year, had a market capitalisation next to nothing, has enjoyed significant surge of 14.5 percent year-to-date in 2021. It had a market capitalisation of N32.7 trillion as at the time of filing this report.

This makes Dogecoin more valuable than the Nigerian stock market which has an equity capitalisation of N20.83 trillion as at Tuesday, May 4, 2021, and a year-to-date of -1.16 percent.

This means Dogecoin investors have had a more successful first quarter this year compared to those of the Nigerian stock market, and currently trades at a market price of $0.678994.

What’s pushing Dogecoin’s value up?

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. The crypto asset didn’t gain prominence among cryptocurrency investors as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripples were more attractive to them.

Read also: Bitcoin crashes after Elon Musk confirms Tesla’s receipt of cryptocurrency for car purchase

But everything changed this year as the second richest man in the world, Elon Musk, took interest in Dogecoin. For over three months, he has been using his influential Twitter page to promote the crypto.

Musk’s involvement in Dogecoin has attracted investors seeking alternative digital asset to bitcoin and Ethereum. Musk is the oil in the engine of Dogecoin even though he favours bitcoin for his car manufacturing company, Tesla.

He is known and calls himself the ‘Dogefather’, and has frequently tied Dogecoin to his space programme promotion, one of them being, “SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.”

Musk’s backing of Dogecoin has increased investors’ confidence, compelling sport company, Dallas Mavericks to accept Dogecoin for tickets and merchandise.

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