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Who created Dogecoin? Cryptocurrency price jumps after Mark Cuban claims Dallas Mavericks could take it to $1

'The @dallasmavs have done more than 20,000 #Dogecoin in transactions, making us the LARGEST #DOGECOIN MERCHANT IN THE WORLD!'

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had cryptocurrency Dogecoin go berserk on Twitter. Dogecoin jumped its price, after claiming his NBA team could help push it up to $1. The 'Shark Tank' investor took to Twitter over the weekend where he revealed the Mavs had handled more than 20,000 Dogecoins, which roughly tallies about $1,109 in transactions within two days of the announcement that the team would accept dogecoin as payment for tickets and Mavs merchandise.

"The @dallasmavs have done more than 20,000 #Dogecoin in transactions, making us the LARGEST #DOGECOIN MERCHANT IN THE WORLD ! We thank all of you and can only say that if we sell another 6,556,000,000 #DOGECOIN worth of Mavs merch, #dogecoin will DEFINITELY HIT $1 !!!," Cuban tweeted. 

According to New York Post, Cuban had said the currency's price will hit a dollar if Mavs fans buy another 6.5 billion Dogecoin worth of merchandise. The site added this would equate to roughly five percent of all the dogecoin currently in circulation.

Who created Dogecoin?

It all started as a joke. IBM software engineer Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer embarked on a quest to create a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach more users than Bitcoin. Dogecoin officially came into existence on December 6, 2013, and saw well over a million visitors to the official site, Dogecoin.com. For those unaware, it features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "Doge" meme.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Dogecoin, on January 28, 2021, reached a market capitalization of US $5,382,875,000. The current circulating supply is 127 billion of which 113 have already been mined. Coming back to the playing up of the cryptocurrency, Dogecoin was still not within touching distance of the $1 despite the spike. Twitter users keen on the topic had their thoughts on Cuban's tweet.

"Every journey begins with a single step. Mass adoption of trends doesnt happen overnight. It's not too late to purchase some Dogecoin too," one of the tweets read. "I read "20k DogeCoin in transactions". Maybe he will explain or maybe he's just leveraging Doge popularity for his team, that couldn't play due to covid, as a way to help fix his P&L statements. Free advertising," another commented. "He’s being supportive…..he’s actually using the coin for its original purpose, a currency. Smart as they receive and hold it for a few years and make a killing," a comment read.

Some found this impressive. "Either way, it’s impressive.. the Mavs became the largest merchant in a matter of a day or so.. I wouldn’t be so quick to think he is thumbing his nose at it.. Also, a large percentage of #dogecoin hodlers are through exchanges.. where we can’t spend it," a tweet read.