NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. — Editor's note: The above video is an explainer on what exactly Dogecoin is.
In the past week, Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started in 2013 as a joke, has soared more than 400%. Now, "Reddit traders," or retail investors, think the next big thing is making April 20, or "420," "Doge Day."
Their goal is to see Dogecoin hit $1 today, exactly one week after it was valued at just nine cents, according to Fortune's Chris Morris. Making this happen on April 20, "420" is likely a tongue-in-cheek nod to the joke that is Dogecoin's creation, as today is a day that typically celebrates marijuana consumption.
Dogecoin is currently among the top-five digital currencies, according to CoinGecko. The virtual money features the face of the popular "doge" meme that was big in the early part of the last decade. The meme typically features a Shiba Inu dog with nonsensical words and phrases around its head, according to previous FOX43 reporting.
In January, these Reddit traders decided that pushing Dogecoin into the public consciousness was the next big project after popular trading app, Robinhood, halted transactions on GameStop.
There's been waves in the past few months that show Dogecoin's popularity slowly rising, especially since Tesla founder Elon Musk has showed interest in the cryptocurrency. He's repeatedly tweeted about it, after all. Dogecoin has already hit some financial landmarks that didn't seem possible a year ago already this year, also according to Morris. Its market value has topped $50 billion, for example.
But, as Morris points out, Elon Musk has nothing to do with Dogecoin trending again. Slim Jim, the packaged meat company, gets all the credit. On April 14, the company tweeted the following:
And for some reason that can only really be explained by "the internet," this threw Reddit traders into a frenzy, as well as other brands, like the chocolate bar company, Snickers.
People of the internet are hopping on the bandwagon and pushing for April 20 to be "Doge Day" too; check out some of the tweets below:
As Morris notes, in early morning trading on Tuesday, Dogecoin was up 27% to 39 cents. Since the beginning of 2021, the cryptocurrency is up a "mind-boggling" 8,224%.