<\/p>\n
- \n
- Decoupling between Musk\u2019s tweets and DOGE\u2019s price action has been profound.<\/em><\/li>\n
- DOGE can\u2019t be written off just yet, given its origins and massive popularity.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Dogecoin [DOGE]<\/span><\/a> has maintained its spot as the top meme coin in the world for many years now. However, several criticisms have been made against the meme coin because of its lack of real-world usability. <\/span><\/p>\n
Since launch, DOGE has always remained a so-called puppet of Elon Musk, as his remarks have often worked as a trigger for the meme coin\u2019s price action.<\/span><\/p>\n
Though at first glance, Dogecoin might seem to have no development going around it, a deeper dive into the blockchain\u2019s state revealed quite a few factors that could turn out to be instrumentation to keep it relevant in 2024. <\/span><\/p>\n
Therefore, let\u2019s have a closer look at the world\u2019s top meme coin\u2019s state.<\/span><\/p>\n
The superficial world of memecoins<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The digital asset landscape was not ready for the weird new class of tokens which would become the subject of astonishing publicity, both within and outside crypto circles \u2013 Memecoins. As the name suggests, there\u2019s hardly anything serious about them.<\/p>\n
Gracy Chen, Managing Director of cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, describes them in the most apt way possible,<\/p>\n
\n
\u201cMeme coins are a form of social tokens created by people for people. They are often created and promoted by online communities or individuals with a shared interest or sense of humor. The social element of meme coins plays a significant role in their success and adoption, as it fosters a sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Birthed out of a popular joke on social media featuring a Shiba Inu dog, these assets, ironically, became one of the hottest commodities in the crypto-market in no time. At the time of writing, memecoins had a market cap of more than $23 billion as per CoinMarketCap<\/a>, led by the pioneer Dogecoin [DOGE]<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Ranked as the 7th-largest crypto-asset by market cap, DOGE has seen an unprecedented hike in value and popularity over the years. In fact, the historic 2020-21 bull market saw the memecoin scaling new heights. Now, nothing about it is a joke anymore.<\/p>\n
However, as the great Warren Buffett once quipped, \u201cYou only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.\u201d More than anything, this sums up DOGE\u2019s position in the ongoing crypto-winter.<\/p>\n
Shiba Inu looks to shed \u201cmemecoin\u201d tag<\/strong><\/h4>\n
As the cacophony of bull runs and all-time highs (ATH) faded, developers and investors realized that the need of the hour is a robust underlying technology. Not memes. This, to power digital assets and bolster their argument for mass adoption.<\/p>\n
The younger member of the family, the $6-billion Shiba Inu [SHIB]<\/a> token, which was inspired by DOGE, was quick to spot these shifting dynamics. It started to work on developing meaningful real-world use cases for its native tokens to shed its nagging \u201cmeme coin\u201d image.<\/p>\n
The Shiba Inu ecosystem recently launched Shibarium<\/a>, the much-awaited Ethereum [ETH]<\/a> layer-2 (L2) chain, after completing a five-month-long rigorous testing phase. This launch brought crucial utility to SHIB and Bone ShibaSwap [BONE]<\/a> tokens. The breakthrough project is aimed at making the ecosystem an attractive destination for decentralized finance (DeFi) apps.<\/p>\n
According to Shibariumscan, the total number of wallets on the L2 had surged to 1.3 million, at the time of writing. The total transaction count topped 200 million, with more than 7 million getting processed on 28th December.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Shibariumscan.io_-1.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSource: Shibariumscan.io<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Shibarium\u2019s hype was also built upon the fact that the ecosystem\u2019s own metaverse \u2013 Shib the Metaverse<\/a> \u2013 would be developed on the L2 network. Metaverse, which fuses the real and the virtual seamlessly, has become a hot talking point among tech enthusiasts and gamers. Shiba Inu\u2019s strategy to get a headstart in this niche but forward-looking technology could prove to be a game changer.<\/p>\n
Shiba Inu\u2019s seriousness can be gauged by the fact that it went on to publish a full-fledged whitepaper \u2013 SHIBPaper<\/a> \u2013 outlining its vision for the ecosystem. It even introduced a novel concept called the Shiba Inu state, defining it as a \u201charmonious blend of age-old principles with state-of-the-art technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
While only time will tell how far the Shiba Inu universe can expand, there is little doubt that it is leaving no stone unturned in its long-term expansion plans.<\/p>\n
Dogecoin\u2019s over-reliance on Musk and social media<\/strong><\/h4>\n
On the contrary, the original memecoin, DOGE, has failed to add effective real-world use cases to its repertoire in the bear market. Instead, it has continued its over dependence on tech czar Elon Musk and his multi-billion dollar social platform X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n
Elon Musk has been an avid watcher of the crypto-market, occasionally heaping praises on certain aspects of cryptocurrencies. However, nothing comes quite as close as his endorsement of DOGE.<\/p>\n
It all started with a fairly candid post about the dog-themed token some four years ago. The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n
\n
Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
DOGE reacted instantly to Musk\u2019s admission, appreciating by more than 70%. What was especially interesting was that this was during the peak of the bear market.<\/p>\n
Since then, the tech entrepreneur has publicly supported the memecoin several times. In fact, he even referred to it as the \u201cpeople\u2019s crypto\u201d on one occasion, citing its broad use among his company\u2019s blue-collar staff.<\/p>\n
\n
Lots of people I talked to on the production lines at Tesla or building rockets at SpaceX own Doge. They aren\u2019t financial experts or Silicon Valley technologists. That\u2019s why I decided to support Doge \u2013 it felt like the people\u2019s crypto.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 24, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Aside from the momentary price inclines, an endorsement by one of the world\u2019s wealthiest individuals resulted in a never-seen-before optimism among the Dogecoin community. And, the enthusiasm reached a crescendo during the fall of 2022 when Musk took over Twitter.<\/p>\n
The speculations around DOGE becoming the official mode of crypto-payment started hitting the roof. The memecoin more then doubled in value in a week\u2019s time. At the time, it looked like a new dawn for the crypto-asset. Alas, not to be!<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s promotion of the memecoin actually set the meme world on fire. Rib-tickling jokes with references to pop culture started doing the rounds.<\/p>\n
One such meme showed Elon Musk and Doge recreating the legendary scene from the movie \u201cTitanic\u201d featuring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. But unlike Kate, did Doge really manage to fly?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Elon-Musk-meme.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFatigue setting in?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
It\u2019s been almost a year. Twitter became X, the user interface got a dark facelift, and Musk aggressively went ahead with his strategies of monetizing the platform. However, nothing significant has come out for DOGE yet. At least not until press time.<\/p>\n
This is not to say that Musk ceased talking about the coin. In fact, he recently said that X is a DOGE-friendly place.<\/p>\n
\n
X is a dog & Doge friendly place!<\/p>\n
\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, unlike previous instances of appreciation, the reaction has gradually tapered off. In fact, after the aforementioned post, the meme coin hiked by just 1.6%<\/a> over the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Arguably, the decoupling between Musk\u2019s posts and DOGE\u2019s price action has become profound in bearish market conditions, according to Gracy Chen. She told AMBCrypto,<\/p>\n
\n
\u201cAchieving enduring growth might now necessitate support not solely from verbal statements but also depends on the liquidity situation in the crypto market and even more important, the concrete developments within the ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So, would it be fair to say that like the tragic ending of Titanic, Doge\u2019s love affair with Elon Musk is also staring at a similar climax?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Doge-meme-2-291x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe \u2018Doginals\u2019 experiment<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Remember the transaction jam on the Bitcoin blockchain in early May? The unprecedented traffic<\/a> caused by the frenzy around Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens? Well, that caught the attention of the Dogecoin community.<\/p>\n
Keeping up with its tradition of imitating Bitcoin, Dogecoin copied the Ordinals structure and built their very own \u201cDoginals<\/a>,\u201d or the DRC-20 standard. The developers even created a page on X, Doge Labs<\/a>, to build the hype around the project.<\/p>\n
Notably, Doginals gave a fillip to Dogecoin\u2019s network activity. The token whose daily transaction count was in the thousands and barely managed to top the 100,000-mark in its lifespan, suddenly exploded to millions.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Dogecoin-DOGE-19.02.21-01-Sep-2023.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSource: Santiment<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
However, unlike BRC-20, the hysteria didn\u2019t last for long. Moreover, the profound impact that BRC-20 had on boosting Bitcoin\u2019s NFT game was nowhere to be seen in the case of Doginals. As things stand, the upsurge in transactions was just an aberration, and the Doginals experiment didn\u2019t have the required impact.<\/p>\n
A striking feature of this phase was that despite greater network activity, the price of DOGE failed to react. To the contrary, it dropped during this phase.<\/p>\n
This has once again revealed a lot about the eccentric world of memecoins. A world in which PR-heavy remarks from tech czars drive more value than something more tangible like network traffic.<\/p>\n
However, industry watchers believe that mainstream crypto-adoption in the future would hinge on network activity. According to Christopher Alexander, Chief Analytics Officer at Pioneer Development Group, for instance,<\/p>\n
\n
\u201cLong after the glitz and glitter of meme coins fades, the utility of a blockchain and the transactions on any given chain will drive long term value. I think Elon Musk would do better by thinking about the underlying technology of blockchain and it\u2019s incredible utility and not just about the byproduct of blockchain, which is crypto.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So, it appears that the popular expression among Doge fans, \u201cDOGE to the moon and we\u2019re not coming back,\u201d would have to wait a little longer because the launch vehicle isn\u2019t ready yet. Might not be a bad idea to ask for recent conquerors India to help.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Shiba-Inu.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDogecoin has a few tricks up its sleeve<\/strong><\/h4>\n
While hysteria around the memecoin is built up, Dogecoin did not have much development happening around it to boast about, unlike its rivals like Shiba Inu. However, less development activity doesn\u2019t directly mean an endgame for the world\u2019s largest memecoin. The memecoin, which was initially launched just to mock the king of cryptos, Bitcoin, has come a long way as it climbed onto the list of the top cryptos by market capitalization.<\/span><\/p>\n
DOGE mining is a huge asset<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A major sector that can act as a pivotal advantage for Dogecoin is its mining industry. As the world becomes more conscious of energy consumption, most cryptos have started to adopt Poof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms instead of Poof-of-Work (PoW).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Although the PoS mechanism is more environmentally friendly, PoW has its own advantages. The most notable one is security. Considering PoW\u2019s strong security against 51% attacks, it is regarded as a safer consensus mechanism compared to PoS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Dogecoin has a thriving mining ecosystem that has witnessed considerable growth over the last few years. Like Litecoin [LTC], Dogecoin mining also works on the Scrypt algorithm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Coinwarz-DOGE.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSource: Coinwarz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The memecoin\u2019s mining gained popularity in 2018 and since then, a massive amount of computational power has been deployed in the sector. This was evidenced by the substantial hike in its hashrate. At the time of writing, Dogecoin had a mining hashrate of 819.87 TH\/s..\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Also, apart from Bitcoin, there are no other mineable assets among the top 10 cryptos. DOGE\u2019s PoW mechanism can help it remain relevant in the market despite low development activity. However, as DOGE lacks utility, its mining sector\u2019s potential future growth remains uncertain.<\/span><\/p>\n
In fact, Ruslan Lienkha, Chief of Markets at YouHodler, a Web3 fintech platform, told AMBCrypto, <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\u201cIt is not clear if the Dogecoin mining industry could grow in the future as the coin. Despite its high capitalization, it is not considered a serious payment system or investment asset but just a meme coin. So high volatility, frequent price manipulations, and theoretically unlimited supply are likely to push away capital inflow from the Dogecoin mining industry.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nRead\u00a0Dogecoin\u2019s [DOGE] Price Prediction<\/a>\u00a02023-24<\/p>\n
\nDoge and X\u2019s infamous bond<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Apart from mining, Elon Musk\u2019s inclination towards Dogecoin can also play a crucial role in keeping the memecoin relevant. A few weeks ago, Elon Musk\u2019s X mentioned in a statement that the micro-blogging platform does not plan to launch its own token anytime soon. This sparked excitement among DOGE enthusiasts as it increased the chances of X integrating Dogecoin for payments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
There is more meat to the story though as X recently obtained a license required for crypto-payments and trading. X has been formally<\/span> granted<\/span><\/a> a currency transmitter license by Rhode Island regulators, as was announced on August 28, 2023. <\/span><\/p>\n
- DOGE can\u2019t be written off just yet, given its origins and massive popularity.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/statics.ambcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/nmlsconsumeraccess.org_.jpg\")