Bitcoin Price Hits $71,000 as Meme Coins ORDI, DOG, and PUPS Surge

The leading cryptocurrency is on the rise again, as Bitcoin hit its highest price in two weeks and nearing the highest point seen since April’s quadrennial halving event. It comes as Bitcoin-based fungible tokens like ORDI and DOG are surging in price, reflecting growing interest in BTC meme coins.

Bitcoin rose above the $71,000 mark on Tuesday, according to Coinbase, popping as high as $71,042. At a current price of $70,885, per CoinGecko, it’s up more than 2% on the day, pushing its 30-day rise to 10%.

But some of the biggest fungible tokens minted on the Bitcoin blockchain via the BRC-20 and Runes token standards are seeing much larger gains of late—including ORDI, a token that had cooled off in recent months.

ORDI, which was the first token minted last year via the BRC-20 standard on Bitcoin, is up nearly 16% on the day to a current price just below $54. That’s the highest price recorded since early April, back when BRC-20 assets were broadly cooling off in anticipation of the new Runes token protocol launching alongside the April 19 halving.

Now ORDI has marked a 33% jump in the last week alone, reaffirming its status as the largest Bitcoin-based fungible token by market cap at $1.13 billion. It’s the 92nd largest cryptocurrency overall by that mark, per CoinGecko.

Other BRC-20 tokens are up much larger this week as well, including PUPS (up 121%) and Bitcoin Wizards (WZRD, up 136%). Meanwhile, the top Runes token has posted similar gains—and could be gunning for ORDI’s spot as the leading Bitcoin meme coin.

That newcomer is DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON, aka DOG, which is by far the biggest token minted on the Runes protocol so far. It was airdropped free to holders of Runestones—an NFT-like Ordinals inscription that itself was airdropped free to early Ordinals collectors—and has since grown by leaps and bounds as it challenges dog-themed meme coins on other chains.

DOG is now up 11% on the day, and has more than doubled in price over the last week, up by 120% in seven days. At a current price above $0.0095, DOG has a $960 million market cap. It’s down about 2% from an all-time high price set earlier Tuesday, but doesn’t appear to have lost momentum as the price is rising once more.

The token accounts for a sizable portion of the broader Runes protocol market cap, which sits at just above $2.4 billion per data from GeniiData. Runes had an explosive launch in April, but then cooled off for weeks. However, in just the last two weeks alone, we’ve seen Runes tokens collectively hit and then surpass a $1 billion market cap for the first time.

None of the larger dog-themed meme coins by market cap have fared nearly as well of late. Dogecoin (DOGE) is down nearly 2% on the week, the Ethereum-based Shiba Inu (SHIB) has fallen by 6% during that span, and Solana’s BONK has plunged by 21% over the last week.