Despite being criticised as risky and speculative investments – and often created as a joke – meme coins continue gaining traction fuelled by their growing online communities. Having said that, though, the original meme coin – Dogecoin – is still underperforming in the market, with its price and market cap deep below last year’s levels.
According to research by BitcoinCasinos.com, a $1 000 investment in Dogecoin a year ago is worth only $558 today.
After the crypto winter, which brought about a $2-trillion wipeout and spooked investors about the future of the entire market – meme coins, which add a layer of risk – have seen both their values and the number of investors drop. While many bounced back over the past three months that’s not the case with Dogecoin.
Dogecoin’s biggest asset, aside from its entertainment value, is its community, which hasn’t given enough momentum to drive its price back to last year’s levels.
Assuming an investor bought $1 000 worth of Dogecoin tokens on 12 March last year, they would have picked up 8 333 coins priced at around $0.12. Just six months later, after the crypto price crash, that $1 000 investment would turn into $491 – a massive 50% drop.
After a short price rally in November 2022 and Dogecoin’s price recovering to $0.14, the value of the original meme coin continued falling and dropped to $0.067 last week, showing a one-year negative investment return of -44%.
CoinMarketCap data also shows that Dogecoin was the worst performer among the top meme coins in 2023. While Shiba Inu, FLOKI, BoneShiba Swap, and Baby Dogecoin have all seen double and triple-digit market cap growth over the past three months, the combined value of all Dogecoins dropped by 25%.
Despite remaining one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world’s largest crypto markets like the US and the UK, Dogecoin has seen its price tumble in the past year. The CoinMarketCapa data showed the meme coin lost 56% of its value in 2022, ranking it amongst the biggest crypto price losers.
At this point, Dogecoin’s price is still 90% below its all-time peak in mid-2021 when it grabbed investors’ attention as one of the fastest-growing cryptos in the market. In May 2021, Dogecoin was traded at $0.68, while its market cap stood at $89-billion at that time. After a turbulent 2021, and cold 2022, Dogecoin’s price slumped to $0.067, wiping more than $80-billion off its market cap.