Dogecoin Leads Meme Coin Rebound as Bitcoin Price Nears $99K

Meme coins are rising again after the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, with Dogecoin (DOGE) and other meme-themed tokens jumping as Bitcoin (BTC) tests a return to $99,000 after nearly a week spent below that mark.

Dogecoin, the original and most valuable meme coin by market cap, is currently priced at $0.42, rising by 7% on the day per data from CoinGecko. DOGE last hit this mark on November 25 and had been below it in the days since.

Like other meme coins, DOGE is famously volatile and can see wild daily swings. But it's still up huge in recent weeks, jumping by 149% in price over the last 30 days amid famed backer Elon Musk's support of Donald Trump—and Trump's election win as a pro-crypto candidate. Dogecoin hit a three-year high price of $0.475 last Saturday.

Major meme coins are broadly up over the past day, with Popcat (POPCAT) rising 12%, Bonk (BONK) up 13%, and Brett (BRETT) and Pepe (PEPE) each up about 9%.

The surge has burned some traders betting on the price of major meme coins to go down, per data from CoinGlass, with nearly $6 million in DOGE shorts and $3.3 million in Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) shorts liquidated over the past 24 hours. Overall, $221 million worth of crypto futures positions have been liquidated during the span, led by Bitcoin at about $65 million.

The vast majority of those liquidated Bitcoin positions were shorts, as the price of the leading cryptocurrency is also on the rise. It's trading above $98,400 as of this writing and looked to be making a play for $99,000 earlier Friday, touching $98,685—but has cooled slightly since.

Last Friday, on November 22, Bitcoin jumped to an all-time high price of $99,645, coming closer to the $100,000 milestone price than ever before.