What is dogecoin? Elon Musk has sent the meme cryptocurrency soaring

The No. 12 largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $6.1 billion, is a joke. Dogecoin (DOGE) started out as a joke in 2013 and is still a joke today—but its value is up 380% in the past month, 696% this year so far.

The coin has ridden the same Reddit-driven retail investor wave as stocks like GameStop and AMC over the past two weeks, further accelerated by a handful of cheeky Elon Musk tweets pumping dogecoin.

On Jan. 28, dogecoin became the most tweeted-about cryptocurrency in a single day, beating a bitcoin single-day record from Jan. 2. Dogecoin was surging so dramatically last week that Robinhood turned off its Instant Buying feature, which allows customers to get instant access to bank transfers, for bitcoin and dogecoin.

Read more Yahoo Finance