Dogecoin Surges 54% as Trading Volume Explodes, Dogethereum Launches

• Dogecoin recently saw its price rise and its trading volumes explode.
• The reason behind the cryptocurrency's surge may be the launch of Dogethereum, a bridge between Doge and ETH.

Dogecoin (DOGE), a cryptocurrency that started off as a meme but was later on used in various community-driven donations, has recently seen its price surge, along with its trading volume, reportedly over the launch of Dogethereum.

The cryptocurrency, which uses a Shiba Inu dog as its go-to image, saw its price go from about $0.0025 o August 20, to $0.0057 at press time. In the last 24-hour period, DOGE is up 54.46%, according to CryptoCompare data.

Dogecoin’s rally was supported by its increasing trading volume which, according to available data, went from a low of little under $2,000 per 3-hour period to well over $20,000, an increase of about 900%.

The cryptocurrency is mostly traded against bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, and against Tether’s USDT tokens. The cryptocurrency exchanges with the largest DOGE trading volumes include Gate.io, Bittrex, Poloniex, and HitBTC.

The cryptocurrency’s rise helped it become the 21st largest cryptocurrency by market cap, as it reached $650 million. Doge’s market cap is notably down from well over $2 billion in December of last year, when the cryptocurrency hit its all-time high of $0.019.

Dogethereum’s Launch

Some analysts have attributed Dogecoin’s rise to the launch of Dogethereum alpha, on August 18. Dogethereum is the result of a collaboration between the Doge and Ethereum communities that lasted 13 months.

Its goal, according to various reports, is to find a way to connect both cryptocurrencies and allow Dogecoin to have some of Ethereum’s features, including the ability to host smart contracts.

Initially, Dogethereum was set to be launched as a separate cryptocurrency, whose ticker would be DOGX. It would be created through a hard fork but, eventually, the communities decided not to split the Dogecoin chain.

On September 5, a demonstration between the Ethereum and Dogecoin blockchain is scheduled. The cryptocurrency’s surge could be related to it, although it’s at press time unclear. ETH has recently seen its price rise 2.79% to about $287.

Ethereum’s developers, as CryptoGlobe covered, recently met over video conference to change the proposed “difficulty bomb” and its network’s block rewards. In the meeting, they agreed to support EIP1234, which would decrease block rewards from 3 ETH to 2ETH, and delay the “difficulty bomb.”