As traders take on more risk, the price of DOGE has surged nearly 10% over the past week, briefly exceeding $0.11 before stabilizing near $0.105, according to CoinDesk data. This rally comes as bitcoin's price has pulled back below $76,000 after reaching above $79,000 earlier in the week. The rise in open interest, which reflects the number of active contracts at any given time, suggests that traders are becoming more optimistic about the market, with many taking on leveraged positions.
With Binance, Bitget, Bybit, and OKX accounting for significant portions of open interest, it's clear that this trend is not isolated to a single platform. Following weeks of sideways trading, DOGE's price increase may be attributed to several factors, including large holders adding over 500 million DOGE to their positions, the listing of a physically backed ETP on Xetra, and positive Grayscale flows. On-chain activity has also seen a significant increase, with active addresses rising by 28%. According to Jordan Jefferson, founder of DogeOS and MyDoge, these factors may be contributing to the token's demand.
Historically, DOGE has traded more like a macro meme, with its price often driven by attention and narratives rather than its potential as a payments asset. The recent announcement of X Payments, a licensed subsidiary of X partnered with Visa, may be contributing to the optimism, despite no indication of support for dogecoin or any crypto functionality. Nevertheless, traders are reacting to the payments-related developments at Musk-owned companies, possibly in anticipation of the token being integrated into X's financial stack in the future.