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Dogwifhat Becomes Third-Largest Meme Coin as Bitcoin Clings to $70K

WIF touched the $4 mark early Friday before retreating as the meme coin sector showed the most volatility in a little-changed market.

Updated Mar 29, 2024, 8:53 a.m. Published Mar 29, 2024, 8:51 a.m.
dogwifhat. (Knowyourmeme)
dogwifhat. (Knowyourmeme)
  • Meme coins led by Solana-based dogwifhat surged, outpacing other niches such as DeFi and exchange tokens.
  • Bets on DOGE-tracked futures jumped to a record $2 billion, and some trading firms warned of a pullback in recent gains as bitcoin and ether price action showed signs of exhaustion.

Meme coins led by Solana-based dogwifhat (WIF) surged for the second day to lead as a category as the broader market remains little changed ahead of the long weekend in the U.S., Europe and parts of Asia.

Bitcoin traded around $70,000 million during the Asian morning hours on Friday, showing little change in the past 24 hours. Ether , Solana’s SOL and Cardano’s ADA slid 1%, while added 4% to continue its Thursday rally.

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The broad-based CoinDesk 20, an index of the largest tokens minus stablecoins, was down 0.56%.

CoinGecko data shows that the meme coin category surged 8% on average, outpacing more serious niches such as decentralized finance, yield farms, and exchange tokens.

Meme tokens started to run early Thursday amid speculations of DOGE being used on an upcoming payments service of social application X, although there has been no official communication from the company.

Bets on DOGE-tracked futures jumped to a record $2 billion, indicative of expectations of future price volatility with a bias toward longs.

Dog-themed tokens such as and WIF jumped as a beta bet to dogecoin. WIF flipped pepecoin (PEPE) to become the third-largest meme token by market capitalization, crossing the $4 mark on Thursday.

Meanwhile, some trading firms warned of a pullback in recent gains as bitcoin and ether price action showed signs of exhaustion.

“The price rally has been exponential in Q1, and there are signs of exhaustion,” Singapore-based QCP Capital said in a Telegram broadcast Friday. “ETH risk reversals are skewed to the downside at -8%, indicating some fear. Funding and forwards remain very elevated, which means that speculators are still paying high prices to keep their leveraged longs.”

“While we remain bullish, we are cautious about leverage,” the firm concluded.

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Forget $80k: Michael Terpin warns bitcoin could revisit the $40,000s before a real recovery

Transform Ventures CEO Michael Terpin at Consensus Hong Kong 2026 (CoinDesk)

Terpin argued that bitcoin’s post-halving bubble followed its typical arc and says history suggests the market may still face another wave of pain.

What to know:

  • Michael Terpin says the bull market peak came in the fourth quarter after the halving, in line with prior cycles.
  • While dismissing $80,000 and $60,000 bottom calls as premature, he sees the potential for bitcoin to revisit the $50,000s or even $40,000s in a fragile market.