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Ethereum, Dogecoin hit all-time highs amid crypto frenzy

Ethereum and Dogecoin hit all-time highs today amid the crypto frenzy. Yahoo Finance's Zack Guzman and Emily McCormick share the details.

Video Transcript

EMILY MCCORMICK: But first, we kick off the hour with a discussion of crypto because we are seeing a mixed picture across the board here. Bitcoin prices are off today. It's been Ethereum that's been the big winner this week. We had Ether hit an all-time high of more than $3,400 today, extending a rally of well over 300% so far for the year to date. Zack, I know you've been watching this space closely. What are you making of the moves today? Because, again, seeing Bitcoin on the decline. Ethereum and even Dogecoin, though, are seeing the biggest gains.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, we didn't have Dogecoin on that board there, Emily. It was left off. I know there's a lot of Dogecoin holders out there who are going to be mad about that one. But we will show it because it did hit an all-time high again today. And when you think about the market cap of Dogecoin now, all the money that's in there, topping some of the big companies we've talked about this week, already bigger than Ford, already bigger than Twitter, but now approaching the size of Moderna when it comes to the market cap of around $70 billion, Moderna's at $74 billion.

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So it's closing in on the market cap of the company that's saved us all from the pandemic-- of course, one of the companies that saved us here in the pandemic. But it just goes to show the amount of money that's pouring into this project. And it's kind of interesting to point out here that it's the second time in the last few weeks that we've seen a big boost in Dogecoin come at the same time as we see a pullback in Bitcoin.

And I wonder how much of it is making, you know, investors who might be traditional investors, who never really thought about crypto and dipped a toe in Bitcoin and said, OK, I'll buy the idea that this could be digital gold, but gets a little unnerved when you see a meme coin like Dogecoin start to outpace Bitcoin by a factor-- a large factor here this year. It's similar, I think, to kind of what we saw play out with GameStop in the broader markets as well, when people were trying to figure out what was going on with the meme stocks.

It seems similar here to me, Emily, but I mean, those jitters clearly not impacting the price of Ethereum, as you pointed out. We've seen all-time highs for Ethereum pretty much for the better part of the last week, high after high after high. And maybe it does kind of shift to the idea that, you know, we're leaning more into these technologies and what they offer when we think about decentralized finance.

It's a very interesting time in the crypto space. And Dogecoin certainly putting its little splash of personality onto this space right now. But shocking when you think about that coin. Dogecoin wasn't even a penny at the beginning of this year, and the rally continues. So we'll see where it goes. But now the fourth largest coin by market cap.

EMILY MCCORMICK: That's right, Zack. Really interesting, though. And I think you bring up a good point, just when it comes to the potential future utility of these cryptocurrencies. Because, of course, Bitcoin has been seen as a digital gold, has been seen as a potential inflationary hedge. Of course, Ethereum has gotten a lot of hype because of that underlying blockchain technology and those smart contract features for Ethereum.

But Dogecoin does seem to be a bit more on the speculative side. And even when we think about the institutional adoption of these cryptocurrencies, PayPal, for instance, just rolled out a feature that allowed customers to transact in cryptocurrencies. And they notably left out Dogecoin among those cryptos that those consumers could actually transact in. So I think we'll have to see where things go from here, but certainly a lot of interest and, potentially, that focus on the retail interest when it comes to Dogecoin.