In the digital era, everyone’s lives have been revolutionized, and the way people control their finances has been fundamentally changed over the years. With this came the rise in cryptocurrencies that users can invest in, which influenced Internet users Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus to coin the term “Dogecoin” back in 2013 as a parody of these cryptocurrencies. Believe it or not, Dogecoin, which began as a satire internet joke, has become a reality and has surged in popularity to the point where its value has increased by 400% in a matter of days, and it is worth an impressive $40 billion.

The concept of Dogecoin originated in an internet meme back in 2013, in attempts to joke about the rise in other forms of cryptocurrency, but recently, its popularity has skyrocketed. Up until this past Tuesday, Apr. 13, 2021, Dogecoin has been worth less than $0.10, but since then, as of Friday, Apr. 16 at 10 a.m. EST, they are valued at about $0.4347, quadrupling in worth in a matter of days.

This spike in popularity can mainly be attributed to the famous billionaire Elon Musk, who has consistently posted about Dogecoin on his Twitter account. This started back in February, when Musk tweeted, “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto,” influencing more of his 50 million Twitter followers to invest in the currency, increasing its popularity by 50%. This escalated to a growth in usage of this term as commonplace Internet vocabulary. Musk and his many followers have continually spoke about sending Dogecoin “to the moon,” as seen in Musk’s Apr. 1 Tweet, “SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.”

Then, at 3:15 a.m. on Apr. 10, Musk tweeted “… going to the moon very soon,” referencing his confident prediction regarding the rise in popularity of Dogecoin, and just a few days later, its popularity evidently accelerated.

This surge has sparked concerns among economists and commentators who worry about a cryptocurrency bubble related to the extraordinarily high demand for the currency. According to David Kimberly, a Freetrade analyst, users should be wary of how much they rely on Dogecoin. Kimberly sees people investing in Dogecoin in hopes of profiting off of its rising popularity, but he warns that this cryptocurrency bubble can burst at any moment. Given the small number of top investors, Kimberly added, “it only takes one person to dump all their holdings for the entire market to tank.”

Nevertheless, many internet users, especially on the sites Twitter and Reddit, are optimistic in its rise in popularity, with some envisioning Dogecoin price to surpass $1. It is unclear what the future of Dogecoin will look like, so it is best that users proceed with caution.