Dogecoin finds itself at the center of a controversial political storm, while simultaneously being embraced by traditional institutions.
In 2025, Dogecoin oscillated between political controversy and corporate interest, during which time its price plummeted.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency tied this meme to American politics, briefly driving up its price, but legal challenges and policy missteps quickly caused the initiative to fade from view.
Publicly listed companies, fund managers, and ETF issuers have embraced DOGE, but strong corporate momentum has failed to propel it to new all-time highs, leading the community to focus on practical growth in 2026 rather than speculation.
It started as a joke, but this year, Dogecoin has been adopted by institutions, bought up in large quantities by publicly traded companies, and its name has been used in a highly controversial U.S. government project led by billionaire Elon Musk.
Nevertheless, this original meme coin failed to reach a new all-time high, disappointing its hardcore fanbase. As of December 15, DOGE had erased all gains made in 2025, falling approximately 65% in 12 months.
Therefore, Dogecoin had an awkward year; it drifted away from its grassroots spirit without delivering the financial returns people had envisioned. However, Dogecoin's builders believe the project is poised for explosive growth and could take off in 2026.
The following is a recap of Dogecoin in 2025.
In late 2024, the Trump administration positioned Musk as the public face of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), although his formal authority within the agency subsequently became a point of contention.
The department's goal is to cut government spending as much as possible. This frenzy has continued this year, with Dogecoin somehow at the center of it all.
Minutes after President Trump's inauguration, the department, led by Musk, was sued by the public interest law firm National Security Counselors. The 30-page complaint alleges that DOGE illegally operated as a federal advisory committee because it violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act in matters such as hiring, disclosure, and other issues.
The following day, the Dogecoin logo appeared on the website of the Department of Government Efficiency. As a result, the meme coin surged 14%, pushing its market capitalization to $58 billion. The logo was subsequently removed, the token price plummeted, and the website was transformed into a page tracking all the government spending cuts allegedly made by the DOGE.
According to Bloomberg, Musk even considered using a public blockchain for the organization, but he ruled out the possibility of using Dogecoin directly. This blockchain-based implementation ultimately did not materialize.
Even after the department officially began operations, the controversy did not end. DOGE wrongly laid off approximately 2,000 healthcare workers, pushed for cuts to foreign aid—which critics argue will harm global health—and was also found to have exaggerated its alleged savings.
Alex Hoffman, head of the DogeOS ecosystem, the Dogecoin application layer, told Decrypt that when he said he was doing DOGE-related work, his family thought he had joined Musk's government agency.
In reality, he was helping to build the product for Dogecoin. This is just one example of how much Dogecoin has been politicized this year, driven by Musk, to the point that the public is linking the two together.
Hoffman explained: 'You know what the Dogecoin community thinks DOGE stands for? Do Only Good Every Day. As a community, we have a lot of power to be like DOGE: do only good every day. Of course, Elon misappropriated it. That's okay, you know. But the community is very focused on doing positive things.'"
The Department of Government Efficiency eventually faded from public view, and Musk was ousted from the US government. This was before Musk's attacks on his former best friend—President Trump—appeared in the Epstein Papers.
Dogecoin is becoming corporatized.
This year, digital asset vaults have dominated the narrative, while a few Altcoin and memes have also frequently made headlines through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Dogecoin has been caught up in both of these trends.
In January, REX Shares applied to create a Dogecoin ETF, which analysts initially expected to be approved in April, but that did not happen.
Two months later, the Dogecoin Foundation established the House of Doge, aiming to promote Dogecoin adoption through corporate partnerships. It reserved 10 million DOGE for these initiatives, worth approximately $1.83 million at the time.
By June, a publicly traded former cannabis company, after changing its name to Dogecoin Cash, had established a Dogecoin treasury through a new subsidiary, Dogecoin Treasury Inc. The company did not specify its plans when contacted by Decrypt, but its telemedicine platform began accepting Dogecoin as a payment method a few months later.
In early July, Bitcoin vault company Thumzup switched to Dogecoin to diversify its vault assets and subsequently acquired a Dogecoin mining company. That same month, Bitcoin mining company Bit Origin acquired $10 million worth of Dogecoin to create a meme coin vault. Since these acquisitions, the price of Dogecoin has only fallen.
In September, a new vault company, CleanCore Solutions, emerged and hired Elon Musk's personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, as its chairman of the board.
Due to its affiliations with the Dogecoin Foundation and the House of Doge, CleanCore Solutions has been touted as the first "official" DOGE vault. As of December 15, CleanCore held 733.1 million DOGE, worth approximately $90 million.
That same month, the first Dogecoin ETF began trading in the US, "shattering" analysts' expectations in early trading. In November, Grayscale's ETF made a slow start, followed shortly by Bitwise's fund.
“In my view, all of this is good for DOGE on a macro level,” Hoffman said. “What I’ve learned is that the DOGE community craves recognition and utility. Everything that’s happening around this reinforces the idea that [Dogecoin] is worthwhile and is gaining recognition.”
Similarly, House of Doge went public on Nasdaq in October through a reverse takeover of Brag House Holdings, a college-themed online gaming business.
Subsequently, the corporate arm of the Dogecoin Foundation acquired a majority stake in the European football club US Triestina Calcio 1918 and began branding Dogecoin on its jerseys and stadium.
Despite a seemingly continuous stream of positive news, Dogecoin has failed to reach a new all-time high. In fact, it's the only one among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization that hasn't hit a new high in the recent crypto bull market. Is all this in vain?
“Dogecoin remains firmly on a growth trajectory centered on utility rather than speculation,” Timothy Stebbing, director of the Dogecoin Foundation, told Decrypt. “In the past few years, Dogecoin has led the speculative asset camp, but now it is finding its place as a utility currency, and as you would expect, this will put it on a different growth path from those cryptocurrencies that chase the fairy tale of ‘always going up’.”
