Dogecoin Price Finally Tops 69 Cents, Flips XRP to Become Top-4 Crypto

It didn't happen on Dogeday, but "ruffly" two weeks after the price of dogecoin briefly exceeded 69 cents, the target the DOGE army had set for April 20 – 4/20 or "National Stoner Day."

The gains continue the mind-blowing ascent of the meme-based cryptocurrency that is now the fourth-most valuable crypto in the world. DOGE is now up an eye-watering 13,611% year-to-date and is up 1,017% over a 30-day period, according to data at Messari.

At press time, the Shiba Inu-represented crypto is changing hands for around $0.66 after climbing to a record high of around $0.696 at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, CoinDesk 20 data shows, up over 38% in the last 24 hours

The Doge project appears to have “remarkably strong fundamentals and powerful forces supporting its rise,” according to a report titled "Dogecoin: The Most Honest S**tcoin" from Galaxy Digital Research on Tuesday.

Galaxy Digital points to increased user adoption, analyzing various on-chain metrics to determine just how popular the crypto has become.

Galaxy Digital's Alex Thorn, who heads research at the company, said in the report there were over 3.6 million addresses holding some amount of DOGE, with around 60% of total supply having moved in 2021.

Its surging popularity now means DOGE has unseated XRP as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization on Messari and CoinMarketCap.

Read more: Oakland A’s Make MLB’s First Dogecoin Ticket Sale

DOGE is now valued at around $84.2 billion in total, while XRP is placed sixth at around $55.9 billion, per Messari. For comparison, bitcoin remains king with a capitalization above $1 trillion.

By this metric, Dogecoin is now worth more than U.S. multinational delivery services company FedEx.

Growth and user adoption in the project have come from multiple angles this year. Multi-asset brokerage platform eToro added support for the cryptocurrency on Monday following strong demand from its clients. Gemini followed suit by announcing the coin's listing on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the likes of Tesla's Elon Musk and billionaire investor Mark Cuban have continued to spur on its price and shine a light on what Galaxy Digital calls an "admirable project." It's possible the price of the coin, which was started as a joke, may rise even further as Musk's turn as "Saturday Night Live" host this weekend draws near. Musk has indicated that DOGE will be brought up in some manner during his appearance. Ruh roh.

As Galaxy's Thorn wrote, "People love a good joke."

UPDATE (April 5, 9:17 UTC): Adds context to new record.