As a seasoned investor who's been in this industry for years, I still remember the jokes from people in the know when Dogecoin first appeared: "If this thing survives for three years, I'll eat my keyboard on live stream." And what happened? Not only did it survive, it became a behemoth with a market capitalization of tens of billions of dollars. Even Binance's CZ recently publicly stated, "It's truly astonishing that Dogecoin hasn't disappeared." This sounds like a rant, but upon closer examination, it perfectly encapsulates the absurdity and reality of this industry.
1. The remarkable resilience of Dogecoin: Elon Musk is the "life-saving miracle worker"
Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke by programmer Billy Marcus and marketing genius Jackson Palmer—using the then-popular Shiba Inu emoji as its icon, modifying the code from Litecoin, and not even bothering to write a technical white paper. But this "three-nothing product" survived thanks to its community tipping culture and the practice of giving virtual gifts.
The real turning point came in 2019 when Musk suddenly tweeted, "Dogecoin is my favorite!" After that, there was no stopping him. He frequently promoted Dogecoin on Twitter, even changing his Twitter logo from a bluebird to a dog's head, causing the price to surge by over 30% in a single day. "When Musk speaks, Dogecoin skyrockets." Even CZ acknowledged this influence: "If it weren't for Musk, Dogecoin might have died long ago."
The problem is that Musk's endorsement is more like a double-edged sword. He once called Dogecoin a "scam" on a show, and the price plummeted by 34%. This extreme volatility has turned Dogecoin into a casino for speculators, rather than a choice for value investors.
2. CZ's contradictory attitude: He doesn't understand it, but he respects the market's choice.
Old Zhao's attitude towards Dogecoin is quite interesting. On one hand, he says, "I didn't expect it to survive this long," yet on the other hand, he allows Binance to list Dogecoin trading pairs. This contradiction precisely reflects the survival logic of exchanges: you may disagree, but you can't go against market demand.
In contrast, Lao Zhao prefers tokens with practical uses (such as DeFi projects in the BNB ecosystem), and he has publicly stated that he "does not hold any Meme tokens." However, Binance has launched new Meme tokens such as PEPE and LADYS in recent years, and even the surge in the price of "Binance Life" (a Meme token that capitalized on Binance's popularity) has led to the community jokingly saying that "it has mastered the traffic code."
To put it bluntly, the essence of an exchange is to serve users, even if users like to speculate on worthless cryptocurrencies.
3. The Truth About Meme Coin: A Traffic Game and a Risk Trap
Dogecoin's success spawned a bunch of "animal coins," from Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB) to Pepe the Frog (PEPE), all touting "community consensus," but the vast majority lasted no more than three months. Their commonalities are obvious:
Unlimited supply: Dogecoin is issued 5 billion new coins every year, so there is no scarcity at all;
Relying on KOLs' recommendations: A single tweet from Musk can send prices on a rollercoaster ride;
Zero practical value: Apart from hype and tipping, there are almost no application scenarios.
But human nature is inherently gambler-like. For example, the "Binance Life" phenomenon that emerged in October this year, which leveraged the Binance brand and interactions with CZ and He Yi, saw its market capitalization surge to $500 million within days, with some people turning $3,000 into $3.3 million. These get-rich-quick stories stimulate more people to enter the market due to FOMO, but in the end, only a minority can cash out and leave.
4. Advice for ordinary people: You can watch the show, but don't jump in too easily.
As someone who has experienced three bull and bear market cycles, I have summarized the survival rules for Meme coin:
Early warning, early action: If you're not among the first to hear the news, you're likely to be the one left holding the bag.
Don't believe in "community consensus": 99% of the Meme coin community will vanish instantly after a price crash;
Beware of celebrity endorsements: Elon Musk can make Dogecoin popular, but he can also destroy it in an instant.
More importantly, regulators in various countries have begun to crack down on cryptocurrency speculation. China banned ICOs as early as 2017, and the US SEC has frequently sued exchanges in recent years. Under this firm policy stance, the Meme coin bubble may be more fragile than imagined.
The existence of Dogecoin is akin to the dark humor of the crypto world: a joke can turn into billions of dollars in assets, and a single tweet can determine the fate of countless people's wealth. But behind the humor lies the cruelty of a zero-sum game—some use it to achieve upward social mobility, while many more lose everything.
Old Zhao said he was surprised Dogecoin hadn't disappeared, but I think that as long as human greed and FOMO don't disappear, Dogecoin will always have a market. Just don't forget what Newton said after losing ten years' worth of wages in the South Sea Bubble: "I can calculate the madness of men but not the madness of women."
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