Bitcoin Parody Dogecoin Hits All-Time High: $2 Billion

In the crypto world, everyone knows you are a dog (meme).  So it was with Dogecoin, originally created as a parody of crypto…and now as buoyant as some of the real deal. The alternative crypto inspired by a dog meme now has a $2 billion market cap, as noted by Business Insider and other sources.  The currency features a dog, and even founder Jackson Palmer has said he worries about market froth.

Separately, Bloomberg reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission halted transactions in UBI Blockchain Internet Ltd., based in Hong Kong – whose shares were up 900 percent last year.  The SEC froze trading based on “unusual and unexplained market activity” and said that questions linger about what the newswire said was “accuracy of assertions” made in financial statements.

Amid other headlines, Ripple slipped 30 percent in 24 hours (but still has a market cap north of $80 billion), with bitcoin down more than seven percent on the day, and in turns of upside, Seagate shares were up 16 percent intraday, and then finished up 6.5 percent, as the storage company was rumored to have a sizable stake in Ripple, which CNBC said could not be confirmed.

As reported yesterday, Israel’s central bank said that it would not view cryptocurrencies — bitcoin et al — as currency. The central bank also cautioned about risks for financial institutions and clients.

Appearing before the country’s parliamentary finance committee, Deputy Governor Nadine Baudot-Trajtenberg stated that cryptos should be “viewed as a financial asset.”

Elsewhere around the globe, TechCrunch reported that the Chinese government is pressuring the Chinese miners that produce the bulk of the bitcoin available in the world. A memo leaked from earlier in the year shows the country’s finance regulator declaring that miners should make an “orderly exit” from the country, said TechCrunch quoting from the memo, having consumed “huge amounts of resources” amid speculation of  “virtual currencies.”