Asian Exchange Additions Drive Dogecoin Price Surge

Feb 13, 2014 at 00:18 UTCUpdated Feb 13, 2014 at 11:53 UTC. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.