Dogecoin Rockets 25% as Trump Nears Victory, Top Trader Signals More Gains Ahead
Dogecoin (DOGE) continued its winning weekly run buoyed by a renewed Elon Musk endorsement to jump more than 25% in the past 24 hours, extending 30-day gains to over 65% to making it the best-performing crypto major.
Musk, who has publicly supported and promoted dogecoin since 2021, has been proposing a Department of Government Efficiency — abbreviated as D.O.G.E; a clear nod to the token — as an agency that will make government spending and monetary planning more effective as part of the Republican campaign.
And that proposal could be close to reality as Republican Donald Trump won his second term as U.S. president in early European hours Wednesday, according to Fox News. Late Tuesday, bitcoin (BTC), dogecoin and other tokens moved higher as Trump’s odds surged higher on betting marketplaces.
Futures tracking DOGE recorded over $30 million in short liquidations over the past 24 hours, an unusually high figure, suggesting part of its move was driven by covering losing bets.
Open interest, or the number of unsettled futures bets, on DOGE is up to 8.30 billion tokens as of Wednesday compared to 7 billion tokens on Monday — showing brisk demand and expectations of further market movements.
A parody D.O.G.E token on Ethereum is up 77% in the past 24 hours, and is up 500% since a CoinDesk analysis first flagged demand for the memecoin among some traders.
Bullish sentiment for DOGE is also showing signs of spilling over to dog-themed tokens, with shiba inu (SHIB), floki (FLOKI) and bonk (BONK) up over 10%. Sector tokens have gained 16% on average, beating a 7.2% rise in the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) majors index.
And there could still be room to grow.
Well-known trader ‘unipcs,’ who has been publicly bullish on DOGE and D.O.G.E since earlier this year on Musk’s endorsement, told CoinDesk in an X message today that he expects the two tokens, and bitcoin, to move even higher.
“I especially think the ‘Elon factor’ is not yet priced in for DOGE,” unipcs said. “There is going to be a media frenzy about Elon and how his aggressively backing Trump and the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ narrative could have been a deciding factor for a Trump win, and that’s going to end up being a key catalyst that fuels both Dogecoin and the D.O.G.E ETH memecoin much higher.”
“I do believe many are greatly underestimating just how much higher these assets are going to go from here,” unipcs added.
Traders have long perceived Trump’s victory as a bullish catalyst for the industry for his pro-crypto stance and promises to make the U.S. a bitcoin powerhouse. Democrat Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has not made similar promises but said he would introduce regulations to protect certain groups.
