Dogecoin (CRYTO: DOGE) is perhaps best known for its image of a Shiba Inu on its logo. It's also well-known as the crypto that was created as a bit of a joke back when it was forked from Litecoin in December 2013.
But for all that, Dogecoin would likely have faded to obscurity by now if not for its astounding price gains in 2021.
How astounding?
On 25 January Dogecoin was trading for 0.84 US cents. By 7 May, when the token peaked, it was worth 68.5 cents. That's a gain of some 8,055% in less than 4 months.
Of course, crypto investors who bought in on 7 May are currently nursing some hefty losses. At the time of writing, Dogecoin is worth 31.8 US cents. A healthy reminder of the wild volatility inherent amongst most non-stable coin cryptos.
Even with the big retrace though, Dogecoin remains up 3,686% since 25 January. And with Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) boss Elon Musk continuing to drop its name in tweets, you'll likely hear more about the dog themed token.
The best performing dog themed crypto of the day isn't Dogecoin
Dogecoin isn't the best performing among the top 100 cryptos today. In fact, it's not even the best performing dog themed crypto of the day.
The Dogecoin price is down 3.5% at time of writing. It's in good company, with Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) also in the red.
Today's best performing crypto, by a small landslide, is Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB), according to data from CoinMarketCap.
At the current price of US 0.000916 US cents, Shiba Inu is up more than 25% since this time yesterday. With a market cap of US$3.5 billion, it's now the 30th largest crypto in existence.
And yes, its logo is the same canine species as Dogecoin.
What's driving Shiba Inu's price gain?
You've probably heard of Dogecoin. But if you haven't heard of Shiba Inu, you're not alone.
The dog themed token was created in August 2020 and is verified on the Ethereum blockchain. Claiming it has the potential to deliver outsized gains amongst cryptocurrencies, Shiba Inu is billed as "the Dogecoin killer" on its website.
The recent price gains appear to be linked to an announcement by Coinbase yesterday saying its Coinbase Pro users will be able to trade Shiba Inu tokens by the end of this week. Coinbase users were first able to trade Dogecoin earlier this year.
