An unexplained advert in today's Guardian financial pages has got Twitter into a stir.

The newspaper has given a quarter page to the doge meme, a joke that has gained huge popularity in recent months since its inception in 2010.

Featuring a shiba inu and some nonsensical phrases "pls red," "much 4mal", "so print", and "wow", the meme plays on depicting the thoughts of a cute doge.

There's no clue as to what the advert is for or who has paid for it. It may have just been used as a filler ad – for where a slot hasn't been filled.

And the Guardian's unofficial doge correspondent – Alex Hern – is giving no clues as to its origin.

We hope this is a teaser ad – to which the text "such mistery" alludes. Could the left leaning newspaper now be embarking on a campaign to back a new payment system?

Update: The Guardian has told Buzzfeed that the advert is a prize awarded to data company DueDil, who won a Small Business Networks competition.

Update 2: DueDil have posted this blog, explaining why they chose to advertise doge using their prize.

We’ll be honest. We were having a hard time deciding which advert to run with our free advertising space the Guardian so kindly offered us for winning their Small Business Networks competition. We tried a traditional advert, which was nice, but then we remembered we’re not a traditional kind of company. … And of course we just wanted to print doge in the guardian, y’know, for the lulz.

The Guardian's inclusion of the advert offers much needed credibility to a relatively new cryptocurrency – Dogecoin.

Following its creation last December, the ascent of dogecoin has been remarkable – it's now the world's fifth largest virtual currency by market capitalisation according to coinmarketcap.

The sum of all dogecoins is now worth approximately $48.9m, with dogecoin trading at $0.0011.

While the currency is currently trading lower, such prominent placement in a well known national is sure to buoy investor spirits.