Welcome to this week’s edition of Overbit News.
Our first story of the day is a familiar one for Overbit readers in 2021, and that is stories of another all-time high. This time around, it’s Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, as well as the original ‘altcoin’.
Ethereum, which was once in Bitcoin’s shadow, has recently seen parabolic gains as investors search for alternative cryptocurrencies to invest in. In April, Bitcoin dropped by more than 2%, while Ethereum increased by more than 40%. Just a little over a week into May and the entire crypto market is now worth about $2.5 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap – presumably driven by the rising open interest in the market.
It’s no surprise to see Ethereum’s performance closely follow behind Bitcoin, albeit a few weeks or even months removed. The latter half of 2020 and all of 2021 have been marked an insane amount of market interest, with even big institutions and corporations hopping in this time around like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Tesla and Square, just to name a few.
Not everyone is so convinced by the crypto market and its ongoing frenzy, though. The “Mother of all bubbles,” according to Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America Securities, and “No fundamentals with this commodity, period,” according to Stephen Isaacs of Alvine Capital.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem easy to bet against a market continuing to make all-time highs every few months, weeks and even days.
Closing out today’s edition of Overbit News, we move to a headline that 2021 seemingly cannot get enough of Dogecoin and Elon Musk.
After much fanfare and excitement for Elon Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live”, it seems things did not exactly work out for the Dogecoin army. Dogecoin reached a peak around 70 cents before the airing, but by Sunday morning, it had crashed almost 40%, down to as low as 44 cents. It seemed Musk’s hosting and the show itself were all in good fun, but many spectators did point to Musk light-heartedly calling Dogecoin “a hustle” in of the sketches as the reason for its crash.
Nevertheless, Dogecoin remained resilient as it has for much of 2021.
The day after Musk’s debut as host of “Saturday Night Live,” Musk, the self-proclaimed “Dogefather,” announced the DOGE-1 mission. The news was initially shared in an announcement with Geometric Energy Corporation this past Sunday, which SpaceX’s communications team confirmed later that day.
Details are still sparse on the actual value, but according to reports, DOGE-1 will fly a 40-kilogram cube satellite as a payload aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, in which Dogecoin will be used as full payment for the lunar payload.
DOGE-1, according to SpaceX’s vice president of commercial sales Tom Ochinero, “will show the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and lay the groundwork for interplanetary trade.”
Musk had previously revealed the company’s plans, albeit in an April Fools’ Day tweet, in which he said, “SpaceX is going to place a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.”.
Though all of this may seem a bit confusing and even a bit strange, the takeaway is simply: cryptocurrency markets continue to be a place for new, fun and quick innovation – types of which don’t happen in many other places.
Thanks again for reading – we hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of Overbit News.