Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010 )
After the "Trump effect" swept through the cryptocurrency market, driving the BTC price to approach $90,000, the "Musk effect" has also arrived with a bang. As the former "DOGE godfather", the most driven is naturally the "Meme No. 1 coin" - DOGE. According to Coingecko website data, DOGE's market capitalization has surged in just two days, quickly surpassing XRP and USDC, and is currently ranked sixth in the cryptocurrency market with a market capitalization of over $63 billion.
Odaily Planet Daily will briefly analyze the recent trend of DOGE and the future development of Memecoins in this article for readers' reference.
"Meme No. 1 Coin": The Meme Coin King Across 4 Major Cycles
As we mentioned in our previous article 《A 3-Minute Overview of the History of Meme Coins: Past and Future》—
The prototype of DOGE, Kabosu, began to be widely disseminated on the globally renowned online forums 4 chan and Reddit in the summer of 2013. Riding on this cultural craze, Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus released Dogecoin (DOGE) on the Bitcointalk forum on December 8, 2013 - it was the first cryptocurrency based on an Internet Meme.
The success of Dogecoin has brought about a new class of coins that are unconventional, humorous, and satirical, using celebrities (such as Kanye West, Max Keiser), animals (such as Pandacoin), or trying to appeal to specific groups as Memes. These were all launched on the "Alternative Cryptocurrency" sub-forum of Bitcointalk in the form of Proof-of-Work (PoW). "Specifications" became less important, and "Meme" became more important.
From its launch in 2013 to the passing of the DOGE prototype Kabosu in May this year, DOGE has been an indispensable part of the cryptocurrency market for nearly 4 crypto cycles. In particular, it has become the oldest and one of the few Meme coins in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization in this cycle known for the "Meme Coin SuperCycle", and its historical status and market performance are equally important. Specifically, its value is manifested in 3 aspects:
First, DOGE is the "synonym" of Meme coins
Undoubtedly, if there is a Meme coin project with the widest dissemination, the greatest impact, and the highest recognition, it is DOGE. This is not only due to its long history and the positive support of the currently hot "Trump fan leader" Musk, but also due to its highly viral and low-threshold "primitive Meme" - the Shiba Inu Kabosu. As the saying goes: "Who would refuse a cute and adorable dog?" One of the "3B principles" revered in the advertising industry is Beast - animals, and this is a clear case of DOGE.
In other words, when new market participants enter, the best choice in front of countless newcomers is DOGE. This can be seen from the recent surge in Google searches for Bitcoin - if Bitcoin is the first flag that can be seen when entering the cryptocurrency, then DOGE is the "key" to entering the cryptocurrency world. Regarding the advantages of Meme coins such as the entry threshold, we have also mentioned them in our previous article《Meme Coins: A Complete Substitute for Non-Fungible Tokens》, you can refer to it if you are interested.
Secondly, DOGE is the "ceiling" of Meme coins
From the perspective of the "ceiling" of Meme coins, DOGE's market capitalization once reached around $88.8 billion (according to Coingecko data, which occurred in early May 2021), and its price once soared to about $0.73. Compared to other cryptocurrency projects with market capitalizations in the hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, DOGE can be called an "industry miracle".
And with the advent of the new crypto cycle, buoyed by the good news of Trump's election as the new US president and Musk's joining the Trump administration to participate in political and economic decision-making, DOGE's subsequent development momentum is expected to break through its previous high, with a market capitalization of $100 billion within reach, at which point it will once again become the "most eye-catching Meme coin" in the cryptocurrency.
Similarly, DOGE has also set a great example for the currently highly active Meme coin projects in the market such as PEPE, FLOKI, and BONK - "Meme coins can also compete with a host of value coins and VC coins without falling behind", which is crucial for crypto players, especially new entrants, who are in urgent need of building confidence and even faith in Meme coins.
Thirdly, DOGE is the "wind vane" of Meme coins
The reason why DOGE is seen as the wind vane of Meme coins is that it has recently become the "leader" of the Meme coin rebound—
On October 31, on the eve of the US election, Musk posted that "our system is inverted, making it difficult for high-quality talent to legally enter the US, while criminals can easily enter the US illegally. Why is illegal entry easier than legal entry? Trump and DOGE will solve this problem."(Odaily Planet Daily note: DOGE can refer to the Meme coin DOGE, as well as the government efficiency department D.O.G.E. that Musk has mentioned several times before.)
On November 2, Robinhood Crypto EU announced that Robinhood Crypto now supports DOGE token transfers, as well as deposits and withdrawals.
On November 6, the dust settled on the US election, and Trump, whom Musk had poured his resources into, successfully won the US election, some smart money quickly increased their holdings by 6.01 million Ethereum Meme coin DOGE, with a total unrealized profit of $2.045 million; at the same time, DOGE broke through $0.2 USDT that day, with a 24-hour increase of 19.18%, and has continued to rise since then, with its market capitalization soaring from the previous $16 billion to nearly $64 billion now, a 4-fold increase in just one month.No wonderBloomberg even exclaimed: "Trump's election has sparked a speculative frenzy in the crypto market, with DOGE up about 50% in the last 5 days, outperforming BTC".
At the same time, a host of dog-themed Meme coins including DOGE have also been riding the wave, with their recent price performance quite eye-catching.
Furthermore, as we mentioned in the article "The Crypto Carnival: With a Market Cap of Only 2.5%, How Much Room is Left for the Meme Coin Market?": "When BTC was priced around $57,361, the total cryptocurrency market cap was only $2.3 trillion. In the future, with the euphoric market sentiment, it is highly possible that 1-3 Meme coin projects with a market cap of $100 billion will emerge, and the overall Meme coin market cap may even exceed $300-500 billion."
The Future of Meme Coins: Riding the Market Tide to the Stars
Looking at the past performance, although Meme coins are currently surging, the super cycle of Meme coins, which belongs more to crypto players, is still in the stage of accumulating strength. This is naturally inseparable from the many driving forces that have a great impact on the market - policy support, capital flows, information dissemination, and actual use cases.
In terms of policy support, the Trump administration will help shape a "crypto-friendly government". In the short term, the "Trump effect" directly stimulated BTC to hit new highs, and in the long run, the most important value lies in the establishment and stable operation of a "crypto-friendly government". According to a report by Galaxy, "various exemptions favorable to the crypto industry are likely to be introduced soon under the Trump administration." Standard Chartered Bank also stated that the Republican Party's landslide victory will enable the new government to implement positive policies in the digital asset sector, which may cause the total cryptocurrency market cap to swell to $10 trillion by the end of 2026.
In terms of capital flows, there is a continuous inflow of funds into BTC spot ETFs, with BlackRock's BTC spot ETF IBIT surpassing its gold ETF IAU in just 10 months; and with the continued stimulus of the Fed's interest rate cuts, more funds are expected to flow into the crypto market, boosting the overall market cap of the Meme coin sector and the cryptocurrency market as a whole.
In terms of information dissemination, as the "DOGE godfather", Musk naturally has a halo effect and can continuously create and generate global attention. At the same time, traditional search engine channels like Google, as well as emerging AI application platforms like Grok and ChatGPT, will provide convenient sources and channels for the continuous production and dissemination of Meme coin-related information.
In terms of actual use cases, on the one hand, the charitable donation use cases of Meme coins have gained more and more attention and use, with the ups and downs of the Meme coin MOODENG named after the viral TikTok star hippopotamus, and the series of ridiculous events where the project "asked Vitalik not to dump the market, we'll do charity ourselves", which have provided a vivid annotation for the "actual value" of Meme coins; on the other hand, with the continued breakthrough of Meme coins, similar use cases like Tesla supporting DOGE token payments will further develop. In addition, the development of the Solana ecosystem's cat-themed Meme coin sector is also worth close attention - previously, the Solana ecosystem Meme coin project WEN spent a considerable amount to acquire the cat-themed account @ShouldHaveCat with over 4.03 million followers on the X platform; another Meme coin MEW has also recently surpassed a $1 billion market cap, hitting new highs.
Summary
Finally, to come back to DOGE, the owner of its prototype Kabosu has also recently adopted another Shiba Inu named Neiro, who has also stirred up the Meme coin sector and attracted widespread attention in the cryptocurrency industry due to the "case-sensitive dispute" (see the article "Neiro and NEIRO Listed on Binance, Is the Meme Coin Track Reaching a Turning Point?"). As for DOGE, its attention group is not only in the cryptocurrency industry, but also closely related to "traffic centers" like Musk.
And after Trump takes office as the US President, Tesla and SpaceX under Musk are expected to receive more government orders and a series of policy benefits, at which time DOGE may truly embark on its "space journey", leading a group of Meme coin successors to the distant stars.
