Five years ago, Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) was a somewhat successful meme coin, but not exactly a household name. Since then, it surged to an all-time high in 2021 and went on another impressive run after the 2024 presidential election. It’s now one of the 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, and it’s definitely a household name — even my grandmother knows what Dogecoin is.
The crypto market as a whole has been doing well this year, and investors are excited about the future. Let’s take a closer look at Dogecoin to see if it’s likely to be a winner during the next five years.
Launched in 2013, Dogecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies, and it’s notable for being the first meme coin. Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer wanted to poke fun at the lofty ambitions of other cryptocurrencies and decided to make their own. The doge meme was popular at the time, so they used that as the name and the logo.
There’s nothing remarkable about Dogecoin as a cryptocurrency. Transactions are affordable, with fees normally costing less than $0.10, but plenty of other cryptocurrencies have sub-$0.01 transaction fees. Transaction processing times are about five to 10 minutes, and Dogecoin’s blockchain can manage about 30 transactions per second. Not bad for its time, but newer cryptocurrencies handle much higher workloads and settle transactions in a matter of seconds.
Dogecoin’s purpose was never to be the fastest cryptocurrency or find new uses for blockchain technology. Its aim was to be amusing. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it means Dogecoin doesn’t have any competitive advantages that make it stand out in a crowded crypto market.
To its credit, Dogecoin has done well at building a following. One of its backers, in particular, has been instrumental in its rise up the crypto charts.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is a longtime fan of Dogecoin. He first talked about it in 2019, writing on X (formerly Twitter) that Dogecoin might be his favorite cryptocurrency.
Musk has also played a role in the meme coin’s biggest moments. The price went up several times in 2020 and 2021 after tweets by Musk, and Dogecoin’s all-time high coincided with Musk’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. Dogecoin’s bull run last year happened right after Donald Trump won the presidential election, and made Musk the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), although there was no connection between the crypto and the agency.
