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"Who let the Dog out?":
Symbol of the new hype currency Dogecoin
Photo: Yuriko Nakao / imago images / AFLO
The digital currency Dogecoin, which is currently very popular among fans of crypto money, continues to soar.
On Monday, the rate of the Internet currency introduced in 2013 rose to a record high of 8.6 US cents.
The level sounds like little, but the market value of all Dogecoins in circulation is currently a good ten billion US dollars.
In addition, a few weeks ago the course was still at zero.
According to the Coinmarketcap.com website, the price rose 25 percent in 24 hours.
The cryptocurrency, which originally started as an internet joke, is currently getting a boost from prominent Twitter messages.
Billionaire and Tesla boss Elon Musk has recently commented on Dogecoin several times.
With tongue-in-cheek remarks he drives discussions about the "Doge", declaring it the "crypto currency of the people" or posting a video about the rocket rise of the currency.
His obviously joking question as to whether the Dogecoin or "all other crypto currencies taken together" is the "future currency of the earth" was answered by the majority of his fan base today: Dogecoin, of course.
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In the past few days, other well-known personalities have joined the circle of fans, such as the rapper Snoop Dogg or the bassist of the rock band Kiss, Gene Simmons.
"Speculators seem to have continued to like the currency and are blindly following Elon Musk," commented analyst Timo Emden of Emden Research.
Bitcoin, the largest and most famous digital currency, continued to fluctuate around the $ 40,000 mark on Monday.
The most important cryptocurrencies in the world
Bitcoin Up Arrow Down Arrow
Bitcoin is by far the oldest and best-known digital currency.
With currently around 60 percent, it also has the largest market share of the currently around 7,000 crypto currencies.
Bitcoin was created at the time of the financial crisis in 2008. Its inventor is still only known by an alias.
The most important features of Bitcoin are its decentralized organization and the use of the
"blockchain"
database technology
.
Both together ensure a high degree of anonymity for Bitcoin users: payments in Bitcoin are practically impossible to track.
Ether Up arrow Down arrow
Ether is the second largest digital currency in the world after Bitcoin.
Their market share is just over ten percent.
One of the characteristics of Ether is the decentralized organization of the underlying
Etherum
network
.
On the other hand - and this is an important difference to Bitcoin - one focus of Ether is on "intelligent contracts".
These so-called smart contracts are basically small computer programs that can virtually automatically execute contracts after payment has been processed.
Similar to the blockchain database technology, smart contracts are predicted to have a great future.
Tether Up Arrow Down Arrow
Tether is one of the "stable coins", the value of which is guaranteed by backing them with classic investments.
In the case of Tether, it is the world's largest currency, the
US dollar
.
However, this violates an important idea of the cryptocurrency concept, namely independence from state institutions.
Nevertheless - or maybe because of it - Tether is very popular.
One advantage of the link to the US dollar is that the exchange rate fluctuates less than other digital currencies.
However, in recent years there have been repeated doubts as to whether the alleged US dollar coverage is true.
Libra Up Arrow Down Arrow
Similar to Tether, Libra is a digital currency based on the "stable coins" principle, but with two huge differences.
First: it doesn't even exist yet.
Second: Behind Libra is
Facebook,
one of the most powerful technology companies in the world.
The idea of Libra is to give a digital currency a commercial breakthrough on a broad front.
The problem: State institutions are not at all enthusiastic about it.
It is true that governments and central banks have long been investigating how they can make use of the concept of digital currencies.
But you don't like to be taken out of your hand.
The
"Libra Association"
initiated by Facebook has met with correspondingly great resistance
with its project.
Digital yuan Up arrow Down arrow
China has
long been working
on the digital version of its currency, the yuan or renminbi.
The project is in clear contrast to the liberal ideas that the masterminds of digital currencies once had.
Because a state uncontrolled, decentralized currency with anonymized payment processes is certainly not what the political leadership of the People's Republic has in mind.
On the contrary, it is more likely to be more interested in monitoring payment processes and related transactions as closely as possible.
The digital yuan can thus be seen as a kind of counter-draft to the original crypto currency Bitcoin.
Source: dpa-afx
The rise of Dogecoin was quick.
Until recently, digital currency was hardly known to anyone outside of the crypto scene.
In terms of market value, however, it is now one of the ten largest digital currencies.
The name is based on the English term for dog ("dog").
The Dogecoin symbol shows the face of an Asian dog with large eyes - once a fun picture ("meme") often used on the Internet.
cs / dpa-afx, Reuters
