MW UPDATE: Dogecoin founder says crypto's rise is 'not something I can comprehend'
By Weston Blasi
Billy Markus said he sold all of his crypto in 2015 after he was laid off from a job
That's Billy Markus, co-founder and creator of Dogecoin, the volatile cryptocurrency that has recently provoked tweets from Tesla $(TSLA)$ CEO Elon Musk and billionaire investor Mark Cuban .
In a long Reddit post this week, Markus wrote about the cryptocurrency that he started years ago as a joke.
"It went from a silly joke to something worth something to people very quickly, and a community was developing fast, with lots of shady people and lots of new people, quickly putting up services and infrastructure around it," Markus wrote.
Markus went on to note that he is not getting rich off Dogecoin, which is up 2,327% in the past 3 months. He claims to have sold all his Dogecoin six years ago.
"I don't currently own any Dogecoin except what has been tipped to me recently," Markus wrote in the post. "I gave away and/or sold all the crypto I had back in 2015 after being laid off and scared about my dwindling savings at the time, for about enough in total to buy a used Honda Civic."
Similar to bitcoin , Dogecoin is a peer-to-peer, open-source cryptocurrency. Dogecoin trades under the ticker symbol "DOGE" and features the face of the shiba inu from the popular Doge meme as its logo.
See also: Everything you need to know about Clubhouse, the billion-dollar social media app that Elon Musk and other CEOs are using
The cryptocurrency's cult-like following has been taken to new heights in recent weeks as Elon Musk has tweeted about it several times.
In a recent interview, Nic Carter, a venture capitalist known for his bullish stance on bitcoin, said the Dogecoin craze has gone too far and "retail punters are going to lose money ."
-Weston Blasi; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
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February 12, 2021 15:05 ET (20:05 GMT)
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