Dogecoin up sharply and Ethereum-compatible Dogechain gaining ground

According to data from CoinGecko, the Dogecoin DOGE token is up 11.6 percent today, trading around $0.085 at press time. It briefly hit $0.088 before stabilizing. The rise comes despite a decline in Bitcoin, Ethereum and the crypto-currency market in general.

Probably the biggest factor behind the rally is the growing momentum around Dogechain, touted as a “layer 2 for Dogecoin“. Dogechain is an Ethereum-enabled smart contract network developed using the Polygon Edge framework. Users must transfer DOGE onto the network to access its applications, which has created buying pressure as the momentum surrounding its launch builds. When users successfully transfer DOGE over Dogechain, they receive a wrapped version of the token called wDOGE.

The Dogechain was launched earlier this month, but has gained increasing market attention in recent days. Many traders commented on the rapid growth of the network today.

Bridging to dogechain, likely going to lose it all. Wish me luck.

– Bagsy (@Bagsy) August 16, 2022

As the network now hosts several Uniswap-like automated market makers, such as DogeSwap and DogeShrek, users can freely list and trade tokens with each other if they hold DOGEs wrapped in their wallets. The project website also claims that the network will host NFTs and games. According to data from DEX Screener, Dogechain has seen a trading volume of $15 million in the last 24 hours.

Dogecoin has been one of the best performers of the 2021 bull run, rising from fractions of a cent to $0.73 at its highest level. Among its strongest supporters is Elon Musk, who has taken to Twitter to support it on several occasions. However, Dogecoin collapsed amidst a period of market madness in May 2021 and failed to regain its highs. Even after the renewed interest in the project, it is still down about 88% from its peak.