Beware of the dog.
Donald Trump’s election to a second term in the White House may have lifted Bitcoin almost 10% over the last 24 hours.
But it’s Dogecoin, the joke token long associated with Elon Musk and a cute Shiba Inu that is leaving the rest of major cryptocurrencies in the dust.
Dogecoin has run up its price as high as 16% in the past day, trading around $0.21.
And its rise comes as the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, who has long touted Dogecoin as “the people’s crypto,” is set to head the cheekily-named Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in the new Trump administration.
Government commission
DOGE, a government commission announced by Trump a couple of months ago, will conduct a comprehensive financial and performance audit of the federal government, which is reminiscent of the Grace Commission initiated by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
But Trump has never referred to it as DOGE. The moniker is Musk’s playful twist.
Launched in 2013, Dogecoin began as a lighthearted jest on the cryptocurrency craze and has since evolved into a major cryptocurrency.
Its association with Musk became pronounced in 2021, and since then, he has often been seen as a driving force behind its popularity.
“My Dogecoin went up when you tweeted. You’re amazing, how do you do it? The power — the power of Elon Musk!,” one Dogecoin investor exclaimed as Musk was surrounded by reporters and enthusiastic fans in February 2021, the early days of the last crypto bull market.
ur welcome pic.twitter.com/e2KF57KLxb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2021
In May 2021, Musk even named one of his SpaceX rockets “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon”, a mission funded entirely by Dogecoin. The rocket was initially scheduled to launch in 2022, then in 2024, but was again delayed due to technical troubles.
Musk’s influence on the Dogecoin price has waned over time.
As the value of Dogecoin plummeted from its all-time high of $0.73 to under $0.20, resentment among retail investors has also intensified. In 2022, a group of Dogecoin investors filed a lawsuit seeking $258 billion in damages from Musk, alleging he engaged in a pump-and-dump scheme.
‘Aspirational and puffery’
But in August, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan dismissed the case, ruling that Musk’s statements were merely “aspirational and puffery.”
“It is not possible to understand the allegations that form the basis of Plaintiffs’ conclusion of market manipulation,” the judge said.
Musk’s growing influence within the Trump administration may bring renewed optimism for Dogecoin investors and traders, especially as overall sentiment in the market begins to pick up.
Musk’s engagement with Dogecoin extends beyond public endorsements. He actively collaborated with its developers as early as 2019.
Dogecoin developer Ross Nicoll told Decrypt in 2021 that Musk reached out to the developers in 2019, providing “lots of advice and input” on technical aspects and sharing his personal contacts with a team of four part-time Dogecoin developers.
Musk made his collaboration with Doge public only in 2021 when he wrote on X that he was “[w]orking with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency.”
Musk also offered financial support to Dogecoin’s core team, but the developers declined his funding to maintain independence, according to Decrypt’s reporting at the time.
Not just Musk
Dogecoin has attracted an unusual alliance of high-profile supporters.
Billionaire Mark Cuban, a vocal Trump critic and one-time majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, began accepting Dogecoin as payment for tickets to games in March 2021. He described it as a “fun” and accessible entry point for new investors in crypto.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin joined the Dogecoin Foundation’s advisory board in August 2021, alongside Musk, when the foundation reestablished itself after a six-year hiatus.
Buterin had long proposed that Dogecoin shift toward a proof-of-stake model — similar to Ethereum’s significant upgrade away from energy-intensive mining called proof-of-work. His involvement was taken to mean that now the developers could explore that option.
But Dogecoin developer Michi Lumin clarified in December 2022 that there were no plans to implement a PoS transition. Lumin did not immediately respond to DL News’ request for comments.
Ekin Genç is DL News’ managing editor. Have a tip? Contact the author at ekin@dlnews.com.
