If You believed, they put a man on the Moon.....

Unless you have been asleep for the past 3 years or completely "off grid", you would have heard about DOGE coin. (Yes, you may Google it in case you have not).

What started of as a "joke" in 2013 (the creators were so put off by BTC's rise, I think, they decided to create a "shit" coin and see where this will lead to) to challenge the dominance of the then handful of crypto currencies. Nobody believed crypto had a "space" (remember this word...) in the fiat (paper) currency world. And back then, a shit coin was a token that had little purpose (called tokenomics) in their jargon....and DOGE was a meme-d (a caricature/corruption of a Japanese dog) shitcoin.

As a lifelong student (and some say the Gemini influence), anything that is "new" (new cars, new wife etc...) excites me - in any field. I am the most "unusual" accountant that I know - and many agree. Having jumped on the notion of the blockchain innovation since early 2016, and after gathering some mileage, I had been teaching classes on crypto since late 2017. I had also offered my advice to educational institutes, financial outfits and indeed, the regulators. Besides my students (perhaps about 1000 pax over the 2 years before Covid forced me to stop), NOBODY in Malaysia believed in the technology called "BLOCKCHAIN". Sometimes in life, the technology "arrives" earlier than when the world is ready to accept: While Henry Ford is credited for bringing cheap/affordable cars to the masses, it was his genius that birthed highways to America. Before cars, there was no "use/need" for proper roads. If in the early 20th century, someone proposed to the US govt the need to build roads/highways costing billions connecting the whole country - he would have been laughed away. With cars, came the highways. With the highways, came rapid growth of townships...and the rest is history. The same with blockchain....time will prove.

Of course now, everybody has heard of Blockchain and many believe it's the "new" internet. But I can't blame the naysayers. In 1994, when as a young accountant, I advised my boss that he should consider putting the firm's accounting expertise on the internet, he told me that the internet was either for the "techie geeks" or porn purveyors - and asked me in which category that I fit. I replied since I was useless in technology, I suppose he can decide easily:). Later that year, because of my "pornographic" interest, he sent me off to New York to work on the Yahoo IPO (that he opined will bomb miserably) that blew everybody's mind away on the "value" of the Internet - suddenly, it was a $billion industry. For interest, today, the 5 top listed companies in the world - are in the internet/tech related business.

And the 5th largest is - of course, BITCOIN ! This "company" started less than 12 years ago and at the rate it's growing, I dare bet a bottle of Singleton, it will be the largest "institution" in the world by 2030, if not earlier. It's value has beaten the mighty Facebook's and Tesla's, and of course, Berkshire's (Buffet incidentally has changed from a "hater" of BTC to an "undecided" now).

We return to DOGE. You recall the 1968 Bee Gees' hit song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrg1UAixGaMthat) that went like this:

I started a joke

Which started the whole world crying

But I didn't see...

That the joke was on me, oh no

Well, folks, the 2013 joke DOGE is now the world's 4th most valuable crypto with a market cap of almost $70 billion today. As comparison of it's financial might in local terms, DOGE is worth more than the top 5 listed companies in Malaysia (Maybank, TNB, Public Bank, Petronas, and IHH) COMBINED !!! I suppose, for those who didn't believe, Robin's song is a good reminder.....that the joke was on you?

And what happened yesterday, 9 May 2021, was simply incredible. Elon Musk (also known as the DOGEFATHER) while hosting SNL, at about 11.30pm EST (about 11.30am Sunday in KL), "joked" that DOGE was a "hustle". By 12pm KL time, DOGE fell by 30% wiping out a market cap of almost RM 100 bil ! If this happened on the Bursa (KLSE for those off grid), you may well see some stockbrokers jumping off Menara TA and so on.

Now picture this:

When Elon appeared on SNL at 11.30pm Sunday in New York and said DOGE was a "hustle" coin, it was trading at 70c. Immediately after his "joke" it fell to a low of 44c - by a whopping 37% and wiping out $33 bil (RM 130 bil) in global crypto equity value! 3 hours later, Geomatric Energy Corp (supplier of fuel to SpaceX.....a company owned by Elon) announces DOGE as the currency that's "going to the moon" ie being the funding for the payload in Falcon 9, the space rocket. DOGE bounces back by 30% almost within 6 hours. Outside the stock market crashes of 1929 and 2008, have you seen a stock's equity sinking 37% within minutes and only to rise by 30% within hours. In my "accountant/analyst" life of some 40 years, I have never seen this phenomenon! But I was not at all surprised: I had many students privately messaging with panic tones.....I merely said "it may be a good time to buy DOGE". For those who bought at 44c, you just made 22% within hours.

Assuming "someone" keyed in a "buy" at 44c......"he" made $30 bil in about 10 hours on Monday. You doubt this?

DOGE went as low as 43c and within 20 hours, it's back up by 30% from it's lows and now at 56c. "Somebody" just made about $30bil in less than 24 hours. You all can guess who he was. When I wrote to the powers that be on 31 Aug 2018 to lodge a market manipulation complaint against JP Morgan's CEO who caused a panic run on BTC by saying it was worthless....only to buy BTC in the millions when it fell momentarily by 40% on his spew, they threw my complaint in the bin. You see, the regulator doesn't take action against the Big Boys...the same everywhere. Elon has been hyping up BTC and DOGE and they only "rap" his knuckles for market manipulation. Anyone else would be charged and jailed.

DOGE was $0.004 on 1 Jan 2021 and I know someone who owned about 4mil then. If he/she kept all, he/she would be sitting on a fortune of RM 8.5 mil today! And those who don't take the blockchain seriously, better rethink...).

So, will DOGE reach the moon....well, follow this space :)

As a hint, Elon seems to think DOGE may well turn out to be an inter-planetary currency: "If you believed, they put a man on the moon"