Sad doge
Dogecoin is a joke cryptocurrency that “shouldn’t have really gotten to this point” and will eventually become worthless.
That’s the verdict of a panel of 54 industry experts convened by Finder, a British price comparison website, for its latest quarterly survey into the state of the cryptocurrency market.
Asked to predict the future value of the Shiba Inu-themed digital currency—launched as a joke in 2013, but propelled to credibility last year by Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla—55% of the panelists said it was heading to zero. Just 21% predicted a recovery in price, while 24% said they were unsure.
Dogecoin exploded in value from less than $0.005 at the beginning of 2021 to a high of $0.76 in May of that year, riding a wave of hype instigated by Musk and other celebrities with large social-media followings.
Its phenomenal price appreciation secured the token a place in the coveted top-ten ranking of cryptocurrencies, with a peak market cap in excess of $85 billion.
However, while the broader market then continued appreciating until November 2021, Dogecoin immediately began shedding value and is now worth just $0.07, reflecting a still-generous market cap of $9 billion. Unlike most other top-tier cryptocurrencies, the token has no discernible use case in either the real world or the metaverse.
It is, literally, just a joke coin bearing the image of a perplexed-looking dog.
“We believe that cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin—which are completely useless and the value is purely supported by the community—will not gain value in the future,” said Kevin He, chief operating officer of CloudTech Group.
Patrick White, chief executive of Bitwave, concurred: “Doge was a meme coin that shouldn’t have really gotten to this point. Thanks, Elon.”
Unsurprisingly, when asked whether investors should therefore buy, sell or hold Dogecoin, 71% of panelists recommended dumping the dog from portfolios. Less than a quarter, 24%, said it was worth holding onto existing stacks, while an adventurous 4% advocated going long on the cryptocurrency.
The results were more confusing when it came to price predictions, though, with the panelists apparently determining that Dogecoin has the potential to be swept up in a broader return to bullish market conditions—despite lacking value on its own merit. The token was predicted to end 2022 at $0.16, before reaching $0.32 by 2025 and $0.64 by 2030.
“Doge is the only cryptocurrency in Finder’s Cryptocurrency Report that saw its 2030 July prediction come in higher than when the panel gave predictions in January,” the company noted, referring to an earlier 2030 price prediction of $0.54.
It added: “Other altcoins saw their 2030 predictions come in far lower. The panel’s July 2030 projection for Binance Coin (BNB) comes in 27% below its January number, with Solana (SOL) down 60% and Cardano (ADA) down 89%.”
Musk’s enthusiasm for Dogecoin appears to hinge on a philosophical belief that “the most entertaining outcome is the most likely”.
The billionaire entrepreneur—who has sold 75% of Tesla’s bitcoin holdings during the ongoing 2022 bear market—maintains, in all seriousness, that the meme coin “has potential as a currency”.
His view is not shared by the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency experts, who point to a litany of problems with Dogecoin including its poor tokenomics, weak network security and minimal development.
