Today we are discussing the fifth issue of the brand new investment research series - Dogecoin DOGE, currently the king of memecoins, with the highest market cap and the longest history of any meme.

In fact, many people do not have a good opinion of meme coins, saying they have no 'value' and do not contribute to societal development or the progress of blockchain.

I think this statement is partially correct. The idea that worthless MEMEs will instantly drop to zero is indeed true, but if a coin has not gone to zero after many years and has reached the top of its sector, then it still holds value. At least it is still worth something, can be exchanged for fiat currency, and in some places, shopping even supports Dogecoin payments. It can also be used to tip content creators on social platforms like Reddit and Twitter with DOGE.

Moreover, its current market value is $23 billion, which is something that is really useless, and it is impossible to achieve this market value!

Let's first understand the history of Dogecoin!

Dogecoin was created on December 6, 2013, by founders Billy Markus (an IBM software engineer) and Jackson Palmer (an Adobe software engineer). Its name and logo come from the popular internet meme 'Doge', which features a Shiba Inu dog.

Billy Markus left the Dogecoin project around 2015 because the coin price was not performing well at that time, and due to being unemployed, he sold all his DOGE, BTC, and LTC, which were worth only a used Honda Civic (around $15,000) at that time. If calculated based on the peak value of $75 million in 2021, those coins worth $15,000 in 2015 would be approximately $75 million!

Another founder, Jackson, also left the Dogecoin community early on, and there are currently not many reports!

So, you see, even a project's founder cannot hold on to their own coins, let alone ordinary people. Then why doesn't Satoshi sell? I think the high probability is that he either passed away or lost his private key!

Doge data analysis

1. Token data

Currently, the total supply of tokens is 168 billion, with no upper limit, with 5 billion added each year (mainly used to pay miners' income). The current inflation rate is 2.9% (gradually decreasing). Currently, the token price is $0.14, with the highest at $0.75 in 2021, and the second highest at $0.48 in 2024. From the perspective of breaking the peak, it performs worse than BTC since this cycle has not reached a new high, including XRP, BNB, TRX, etc., which have all reached new highs, while Dogecoin, ranked ninth in market value, surprisingly has not reached a new high.

However, from a perspective of increase, the lowest in 2022 was $0.06, and the highest in 2024 was $0.48, an 8-fold increase, on par with Bitcoin!

So from a potential perspective, DOGE has greater potential because if it reaches a new high, the returns will definitely surpass Bitcoin.

2. On-chain data

Because it is modified Bitcoin code, the performance of the Dogecoin chain is actually not good. Currently, there are 8.2 million holders, which is the highest number of holding addresses among meme coins!

The original main chain TPS of Dogecoin is only 30, so using the Dogecoin main chain as a payment application is definitely not feasible!

3. Working mechanism

Consensus mechanism: Proof of Work (PoW),

Algorithm: Based on the Scrypt algorithm, similar to Litecoin

Block time: A block is generated approximately every minute (faster than Bitcoin)

4. Mining cost

Since it is a POW mechanism, mining requires power consumption, which is the cost!

Here I found the data from minerstat. If electricity costs $0.1 U/kWh (0.7 yuan per kWh), two-thirds of the machines are in a loss state. If it is $0.05 U/kWh (0.35 yuan per kWh), then only one-third of the machines are in a loss state.

So I estimate that the current average mining cost should be around $0.1, with the current breakeven point for coin prices being around 50 cents for electricity costs!

Of course, I also saw another piece of information (June 2025 data), calculated based on the Antminer L3++ example (older model)

As shown in the figure below:

The final calculated cost of producing each DOGE is $0.03!

I think it might be a theoretical limit because there are operational costs, venue costs, and machine wear, etc. The cost must at least double to above $0.06!

So based on the two data points above, I currently estimate the cost of DOGE is between $0.06 and $0.1. Therefore, the theoretically best purchasing price for the coin is the closer it gets to $0.1 or below, the more it should be purchased! Because it is below the mining cost!

5. ETF data

Dogecoin is currently the only meme coin listed in ETFs, with 4 ETFs launched, including 3 spot ETFs: REX-Osprey with $23 million; Grayscale with $9.3 million; Bitwise with $1.4 million, and 21Shares' futures at $5.5 million.

These were all launched after September 2025, and their current volumes are relatively low! Currently, they total 40 million dollars, accounting for less than 0.2% of Dogecoin's market value. Compared to XRP, SOL, and other ETFs, they have already received hundreds of millions of dollars, and given similar timelines for ETF establishment, this progress is clearly lagging behind, indicating that mainstream institutional investors still prefer tokens with utility rather than meme coins.

Summary

After 13 years of development, it is probably quite difficult for DOGE to die. It is currently the largest meme coin and has a leading attribute. As long as it's the season for altcoins, DOGE will still rise. However, do not compare it to the bull market of 2021, because in 2021, there was the top influencer Musk calling for trades. In the future, with no one calling for trades, it definitely won't have such exaggerated increases as in 2021!

In the future, if there are other similar-level people calling for trades, it will produce the same effect. Moreover, it is currently the most decentralized coin, with a large crowd. Don't think that because the volume is large, it won't pull; gold has a larger volume, and more people own it. It will rise if it should, and the more people hold it, the stronger the 'consensus' will be, leading to continuous increases. If a meme coin is entirely held by the project team or whales, although it can be manipulated easily, such rises are quick but also decline quickly!

Only things with strong 'consensus' can transcend time cycles; their market value will become larger and larger, rolling like a snowball!

So I define Dogecoin as a meme coin with a similar mechanism to Bitcoin, currently fluctuating with Bitcoin. The increase will not be lower than Bitcoin's, but if someone calls for trades (like Musk), there will be surprises!$DOGE