Since President Donald Trump won the presidential election last November, crypto has been in the spotlight. Trump campaigned on making the U.S. the crypto capital of the world, and when he took office in January, his administration got right to work.
Whether through legislation passed by Congress, implementing pro-crypto cabinet members and advisors, or a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the sector has gotten a lift, despite having to navigate economic uncertainty with Trump’s tariffs and the high interest rate environment.
Many investors believe the crypto bull market will likely continue, or that we might even be in a completely new era of crypto acceptance. Looking ahead, which cryptocurrency is more likely to make a millionaire? The meme token Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), or Solana (CRYPTO: SOL)?
Dogecoin: Can the meme token last and maintain relevance?
Dogecoin is a fairly old cryptocurrency, having launched in 2013. Developers created it as a joke, and it became the original meme token, with viral posts of its Shiba Inu mascot and celebrity endorsements carrying the price higher and making it a top-10 cryptocurrency by market cap at roughly $33.6 billion. Dogecoin is special because it’s really the first cryptocurrency that the internet ran with and created a viral community around.
But from a utility perspective, Dogecoin, and its network, don’t really offer anything unique. Its supply is not finite and actually grows each year; its network still runs on an energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, and Dogecoin’s blockchain network doesn’t process many transactions per second (TPS).
Now, there has been talk of potential changes to the network, including transitioning over to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. In proof-of-stake, token holders stake their tokens for the opportunity to get selected to validate transactions, mint new blocks, and earn rewards. Those who stake more tokens have a better chance of getting selected. PoW is energy intensive because it involves running hardware that can solve cryptographic puzzles as quickly as possible.
There’s also been rumors that Dogecoin may build a layer-2 solution that allows transactions to be processed off-chain, which could enable smart contracts and a greater throughput where the network could process more TPS. These kinds of projects, if implemented, could give the network stronger utility and the token more legitimacy.
