(Kitco News) - As the wider cryptocurrency market struggles in the depths of a crypto winter that has been made worse by the contagion effect sparked by the collapse of FTX, Dogecoin (DOGE) is one token that has managed to rise above the noise to gain more than 26% over the past week.
The top meme coin has Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk to thank for much of the momentum it has seen as DOGE remains on the billionaire entrepreneur’s favorite crypto projects.
On Saturday, Musk revealed some of his future plans for the social media platform in a tweet sent to his 119.2 million followers. The tweet included slides from a “Twitter company talk,” which outlined improvements that the platform has seen on certain metrics since Musk took over, including a new record high in both new user signups and user active minutes.
Slides from my Twitter company talk pic.twitter.com/8LLXrwylta
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2022
Also contained in the slide deck covering “Twitter 2.0: The Everything App” were plans that are currently under development, including “advertising as entertainment, video, encrypted DMs, longform tweets, a relaunch of blue verified, and payments.”
While the “payments” slide was the only one that did not have an accompanying graphic, that didn’t stop many on crypto Twitter from speculating that this would be powered by Dogecoin, sparking a 24.15% rise in DOGE from a low of $0.0895 on Saturday to a high of $0.108 on Sunday.
DOGE/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
DOGE price has since pulled back to $0.0963 amid a variety of headwinds, including a rise in discontent and protests from citizens in China following months of strict COVID lockdowns, but the chatter surrounding the coin remains high.
Also helping to provide a boost for Dogecoin is the upcoming launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 14, 2023, which will include the DOGE-1 lunar payload.
Musk, who is the founder of SpaceX, first announced the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” back in May 2021, but the original launch was delayed due to the Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 lunar lander dictating the mission’s progress.
SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2021
– Mission paid for in Doge
– 1st crypto in space
– 1st meme in space
To the mooooonnn!!https://t.co/xXfjGZVeUW
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The “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” is completely funded by Dogecoin, making it the first space mission funded by a cryptocurrency. “DOGE1 will be a minor 40kg rideshare payload on Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission,” according to SpaceTV.
While it remains to be seen if DOGE will ultimately be integrated into Twitter and successfully establish itself as the first crypto in space, there’s a good chance that the speculation behind the top meme coin could continue to increase – along with its price – as the wider crypto ecosystem attempts to climb its way out of the crypto winter.
