DOGE detonates

Early today, Dogecoin (DOGE) exploded to a new all-time high near $0.30. As of 7:30 a.m. (EST), DOGE has increased 140% in 24 hours' time, owing to a confluence of financial and social trends and Elon Musk and Conagra Brands.

The maker of Slim Jim meat snacks is crowing over beefy sales, seemingly on the back of a social media campaign connected with a digital coin inspired by a breed of hunting dog from Japan in a creative outburst originally meant to be humorous jab at crypto. Or as the late Randy "Macho Man" Savage, the bawdy wrestling superstar who made "snap into a Slim Jim!" one of the most memorable jerky advertisements ever, once said, "“Oooooh yeeeah!”

That was an apt refrain yesterday, as DOGE surged to more than $0.25 for the first time. The Conagra shout out amped an already stoked online community, egged on by Musk, plus Reddit chatter, feeding a groundswell of ironic-minded masses. DOGE has, as of this morning, a market capitalization of $36.6 billion. This leashes DOGE firmly in the eighth spot.

The market cap of the next largest coin, Uniswap (UNI), stood this morning at $18.8 billion.

Bitcoin fell 3% to about $61,400 earlier this morning in Europe. As of 8 a.m. (EST), BTC was falling even lower, just below $61K.

High-flying major alts Ethereum and XRP also pulled back Thursday into Friday, with the frenetic pace of crypto activity subsiding, not unlike the flame inside a charcoal grill once a generous splash of lighter fluid burns off.

BTC printing a new all-time high about $64,800 – on the day COIN shares began trading – will either become a curious footnote, or eerily never forgotten.

Whether investors are still willing to feed Bitcoin when it is $64K largely depends on BTC returning to said milestone, which would seem probable, albeit not without some turbulence.

“There’s a lot of frenzy right now,” Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz told MarketWatch, per CoinDesk. “That never ends well, and so we’ll probably have a washout at one point.”

Novogratz still believes that overall the crypto sector will enjoy massive gains in the long run.

Turkish inflation hit a six-month high, jumping above 16%. And the local currency is quickly losing value: one lira barely gets you two DOGE coins.

The country’s crypto market, meanwhile, has gained momentum as investors seek hedging opportunities.

Now the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) said the use of crypto assets based on distributed ledger technology would be, as of the end of April, prohibited.

The CBRT said the ban was motivated by a lack of "central authority regulation" and "supervision mechanisms" for digital assets.

Last week, Reuters reported, Turkish authorities demanded user information from crypto trading platforms.

"Bought some Dogecoin for lil X," tweeted Tesla CEO Elon Musk in early February, referring to his now 11-month-old son.

DOGE’s price has soared 250% since then.

Unless Musk sold the DOGE he'd held for his “toddler HODLer," the kid is sitting on a substantial profit.