A senior manager at Goldman Sachs has reportedly quit his job this week after making a fortune on joke cyber currency Dogecoin, which has seen its value skyrocket more than 1,000% this year alone.
London-based investment banker Aziz McMahon, who has been at Goldman Sachs 14 years and served as head of emerging market sales, recently left, the bank confirmed to Fortune Tuesday but offered no specifics on the conditions of his departure.
McMahon left after cashing in big on Dogecoin, the Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday citing sources familiar with the matter.
Dogecoin, a blockchain-based cyber currency created in 2015 as a joke among friends, has climbed in value in recent months on the back of support from celebrities including Tesla founder Elon Musk and American rapper Snoop Dogg.
But most Dogecoin investors have not been as lucky as McMahon.
After Elon Musk, self-described”Dogefather” took to SNL’s live broadcast over the weekend, dropping dog-related innuendos designed to stir support for the cyber currency, the meme-inspired currency fell up to 30% and briefly hit just 49 cents.
The price of Dogecoin had risen above $0.79 in anticipation of Musk’s appearance as doge enthusiasts pursued their goal of driving up the coin’s value to one dollar.
From the beginning, Dogecoin was never meant to be taken seriously. The digital coin face features the head of a smiling shiba inu dog popularized in internet memes over the past decade.
Moreover, 10,000 new coins are automatically created every minute for the rest of time, making it impossible to hold value for any period of time.
This has not deterred investors from hyping up the currency. You can now buy tickets to see the Dallas Mavericks play basketball and Tesla is mulling adding Dogecoin as a payment option for its cars.
Still, once the novelty wears off, most Dogecoin holders will be empty handed — a fate avoided by McMahon, who intends to open his own hedge fund with the proceeds of his cyber currency investment.
