Even months ago, it would’ve sounded like a meme-induced fever dream. Crypto emerging as the biggest winner of the 2024 election; Elon Musk, Dogecoin’s most prominent advocate, rising to unprecedented levels of influence and power; the incoming U.S. presidential administration planning to establish a new federal agency—literally—called D.O.G.E.
But it’s all real, and it’s all happening. And off the remarkable events of the last week, Dogecoin has soared. On election day, DOGE hovered around $0.15. Since then the token has nearly tripled in value, nearly touching $0.43 on Wednesday and hitting a three-year peak this week.
The world’s first meme coin has been here before, though, and tends to lose steam after major rallies. So how long is Dogecoin’s moment likely to last this time around?
Experts who spoke with Decrypt expressed conviction that Dogecoin has emerged from this week’s events a changed token—that, therefore, looks poised to still have its best days ahead.
Thomas Bautista, a research analyst at GSR, explained that whereas Dogecoin’s value was previously tied to one-off news cycles—such as Musk shilling the meme coin on “Saturday Night Live” in 2021—the token has now become so remarkably integrated with American politics and culture that it has graduated to a new level of sustained relevance.
“I'm very hesitant to put a cap on it, because now you actually have this ongoing attention cycle,” Bautista told Decrypt of Dogecoin’s potential price ceiling in the coming months.
For that reason, Bautista believes, the coin looks poised to break its previous habit of rising gleefully due to an unexpected (typically Musk-related) plug, and then deflating.
“No longer is DOGE a prisoner of the moment that's just going to go up 20% and then die next week,” the analyst said.
He also pointed to the increased likelihood, given the suddenly, rabidly pro-crypto tenor of the incoming American government, and Musk’s centrality to it, that Dogecoin could finally become a payment method for Twitter or Tesla in short order.
“You now have more and more of a dynamic narrative around Dogecoin the asset, which has never really existed,” Bautista said.
What does that mean, tangibly, for DOGE’s potential performance in the coming months? Ryan Rasmussen, Bitwise’s Head of Research, told Decrypt he “would not be surprised” to see Dogecoin move “far beyond” its previous all-time high price of $0.73 in the coming months— particularly in the build-up to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
With the exception of crypto mainstays like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, Rasmussen said, he expects that if the digital assets market continues its extraordinary rip into next year—as many are expecting—then Dogecoin will maintain its position near the front of the pack.
“If we're higher in January from where we are today, I would expect Dogecoin to outperform most other crypto assets,” Rasmussen said.
That doesn’t mean, to be clear, that the analysts expect Dogecoin will stay up forever.
“All of this creates a higher ceiling,” GSR’s Bautista said. “But sustainability is still in question.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward