First Mover Asia: Dogecoin Surges 16% to Continue Its Holiday Cheer

The popular meme coin's upswing during U.S. Thanksgiving holiday celebrations, which started Thursday, was an exception in crypto markets as bitcoin and most other major tokens traded sideways.

Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:
Prices: Dogecoin soared more than 16% over the past 24 hours and is up more than 50% since last Tuesday.
Insights: Ethereum Name service selects Karpatkey DAO to manage Its endowment fund

On a quiet holiday weekend in cryptocurrency markets, DOGE made some noise.

The popular meme coin soared 16% over the previous 24 hours and was trading at more than 10 cents. DOGE has risen nearly 50% since last Monday with most of its gains occurring during U.S. Thanksgiving holiday celebrations, which started on Thursday. The reasons for the spike were difficult to pinpoint, although social media influencer David Gokhshtein mused to his more than 700,000 Twitter followers on Thursday about the possibility of new Twitter boss Elon Musk and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin working together on DOGE improvement.

"I feel that we’ll all see Vitalik and Elon working together to somehow upgrade $DOGE," Gokhshstein wrote.

Investors fretting another post FTX-related price plunge in crypto markets could otherwise take heart at bitcoin's resilience, although the largest cryptocurrency's ability to hold its perch over $16,000 for yet another few days hardly suggests a more permanent upturn is approaching, a number of analysts have said. BTC was recently trading at about $16,500, roughly flat for the past 24 hours and about where it stood Wednesday when the U.S. began its Thanksgiving holiday celebrations.

"It's trying to stabilize around the $15,500-$17,000 region and weather the storm but I'm not sure it will be that easy," wrote Craig Erlam, senior market analyst for foreign exchange market maker Oanda.
Traditional markets were closed on Thursday and stock trading the following day was light as many businesses closed, including major financial services firms. The calm extended to crypto markets.
Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency in market value, was recently changing hands at about $1,200, roughly flat from Saturday, same time and about where it stood as Thursday dawned. Aside from DOGE, most cryptos in the CoinDesk top 20 also traded sideways, although XLM recently rose more than 3%. The CoinDesk Market Index (CDI), an index measuring cryptos' performance, was up about 1%.
Oanda's Erlam was less than sanguine about crypto markets as the fallout widens from crypto exchange FTX's implosion earlier this month.
"There's likely more to come from the FTX collapse and the contagion effects, not to mention potentially other scandals that could be uncovered," Erlam wrote. "This may continue to make crypto traders very nervous and leave the foundations supporting price extremely shaky."