Asian Exchange Additions Drive Dogecoin Price Surge

The addition of dogecoin to Chinese-language exchange BTC38 and Hong Kong-based ANX has driven the market capitalization of the meme-based virtual currency to $91m, up roughly $40m over the last 24 hours, according to figures from Coinmarketcap.

With the announcement, BTC38 and ANX join Canada-based exchange Vault of Satoshi as the latest to offer dogecoin trading to its users.

Unsurprisingly, the news sparked a flurry of excitement on reddit, with commenters eager to see dogecoin’s community spirit translate to a new market.

About the exchanges

BTC38.com is registered to a China-based company, though other details about its service remain scarce. Its press release center suggests it began publishing material last October, just before harsh restrictions were enacted in China that limited bitcoin’s use and reduced its value. Site data further suggests its web services came online around that date.

Currently, nearly 70% of its traffic comes from China, while 8% comes from the US.

Information about ANX is more readily available, with its website noting that it has secured a Money Services Operator (MSO) license from the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department.

Further, CEO Ken Lo took to reddit to personally inform the dogecoin community of the announcement, while support teams helped facilitate the initial round of trading. Initial trading was also conducted during a promotional no-fee period.

A short-lived boost?

Notably, BTC38 recently become of interest to the dogecoin community due to its friendly stance toward other altcoins, such as quarkcoin.

Because of this, data from Coinmarketcap suggests dogecoin’s momentum may be short-lived. Following quarkcoin’s inclusion on BTC38, the altcoin saw its market capitalization rise from $23m on 19th January to a high of 30m on 20th January.

This 34% increase was swiftly followed by a decline to $21m on 21st January.

Further interest in dogecoin may have also been driven by its association with the Olympic games, as its community proved integral to ensuring that the Jamaican bobsled team were given a chance to compete in Sochii.

A hedge against bitcoin?

The increase also coincided with bitcoin’s price decline following the news that Mt. Gox, Bitstamp and other major exchanges faced a massive DDoS attack. Perhaps coincidentally, the value of dogecoin also saw a surge during bitcoin’s December decline.

Commenting on the Mt. Gox issues, dogecoin founder Jackson Palmer told CoinDesk that he was unconcerned with the currency’s potential to capitalize on such market movements. Said Palmer:

“I don’t really subscribe to the idea that the viability of a digital currency should be pegged to it’s exchange rate when converted to another currency such as USD. Bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin and any digital currencies viability hinges on adoption, use and belief in the coin as a store of value independent to what you can cash out to fiat cash for.”

However, reddit commentators seem intrigued, suggesting that dogecoin’s continued growth may lead it to serve as a hedge against bitcoin’s volatility, especially as litecoin’s price has shown to move with bitcoin.

Image credit: BTC38.com