With bitcoin in an official bull market now, it may be attaining new highs, but the altcoins are being left behind, except for a select few. One of those few is Dogecoin. Doge is a small but mature token, from the old days of cryptocurrency. This is not a new dog on the blockchain but a legend in its own right.

The status of Dogecoin is not based on any particular fundamental strength or major problems that it solves. In fact this PoW (proof of work) old school altcoin is still thriving after all these years mostly because of one thing – sentiment. People are sentimental about their pet Doge.

In fact Doge is a clear example of how a certain sector of cryptocurrency is actually based on nothing more than a meme. That is what we have in Doge. It started off as a joke actually, a bit of fun, and yet this joke coin has stayed the course and is pumping over the past 24 hours, while all the top serious altcoins with great fundamentals, are foundering.

In Doge we can see how much a community can pull the strings in the career of a token. For example, the massive pump of Doge this week – far outperforming even the parabolic surge of bitcoin itself – may have been triggered by a mere Tweet. Those in the crypto industry may be aware of the fond connection between the second richest man in the world (some say), namely Elon Musk, and Dogecoin.

Elon Musk is not only a rocket scientist, but his Twitter profile labels him – “former CEO of Dogecoin”. Well on 20 December Musk posted a little Tweet that said

“One word: Doge”

And that, some say, is what triggered a massive 40% pump in the DOGE/USD price over the last 24 hours. Of course, price has retraced more than half of that pump, but the point is that cryptocurrency markets are often driven by sentiment, and not fundamentals. Many people are hugely bullish on Bitcoin simply because they are fan boys, they love the concept. They may not be interested in trading or the use case. They simply see it as a revolutionary tool against the mainstream, or they see it as a way to make massive profit. That’s all.

Similarly with Doge, there is nothing special about it as a token. Yet one Tweet by a famous billionaire, and the world goes crazy and buys up Dogecoin like it’s bitcoin. Which it isn’t at all, despite being PoW, like bitcoin (not like ETH). If we take a look at the DOGE/USD chart, we can see how minutely small the volume usually is – until the sudden pump on 20 December.

As if out of nowhere, suddenly we have over 24 hours of such massive buying and trading volume, that the candles look like skyscrapers compared to little shacks on the chart. Out of pure sentiment and a meme on Twitter, the world went into a frenzy and bought up their Dogecoin, pumping the price up 40% overnight. And despite the retrace after the hype, the price has stayed up 15% higher than when the pump began.

This is just one example of how the hype around cryptocurrencies can spiral upward. Now those in the know will be aware that Elon Musk was probably copying an earlier Tweet from a week or two ago by Edward Snowden, whose Tweet said:

“One word: Bitcoin.”

This is how crypto Twitter is able to use the meme culture to push crypto up to unimagined heights. Therefore, despite knowing technical analysis, and fundamental analysis, we also need to consider market sentiment in all our trading or investing strategies. Volume in Doge trading has now subsided, although not quite back to previous shack level lows, but it’s certainly not massive any more. And price has found support and bounced perfectly at the 20 MA on the 4 hour chart.

I’m not saying we must go out and buy any Dogecoin. The overall circulation is huge, keeping the price low overall, per token, but at least we can learn from this particular episode this week just how the crypto meme culture works. It can go viral in an instant. Now some people may complain that Musk’s Tweet was inappropriate because it sent a load of newcomers to buying this random useless Dogecoin, instead of bitcoin, but that is just a matter of opinion.

Ultimately we can all learn about the massive power of a community and a meme behind any cryptocurrency project. The tech may be great and the team may be experienced, but they will still need and also get as much potency if they have a faithful community behind them, who push the meme on social media. That is one of the key elements to any successful project.

So hopefully we here at our favorite crypto site can learn from this and remember to cultivate a good community because they will be your twelfth player – as they say in the football culture about the spectators in the stands. Grow your community and you will have your own bunch of “(Chain)Link marines” or social media activists who will promote your coin and give you all the advertising you need, which is a huge part of becoming a success.