Crypto can be so divisive and nothing demonstrates this better than DOGE sentiment. The recent price rallies have brought further attention to this meme-related form of currency and has even landed the coin in the top 5 ranks.
Naturally all forms of social media outlets had a field day with the news, and rightly so as our furry friend has risen over 4000% in value this year alone. 2 videos in particular caught my attention as they took very different standpoints on these events.
First side of the coin: Charles Hoskinson
In case you didn't know, Charles is one of the original founders of Ethereum and the brains behind the Cardano ecosystem. With a resume like that, it's only natural that when Charles speaks, I listen. If you're into crypto for the right reasons then you must admire the vision of a man who helped found both Ethereum and Cardano.
In his short video, Charles issues a stark warning where he envisages the coupling of large scale attention with the inevitable bursting bubble as a catalyst to high level investigations and regulations for cryptocurrencies as a whole.
To a certain extent, this is reminiscent of the 90s rave culture. Parties would break out, at first leading to some good old fun but sooner or later things would get out of hand, someone would overdose, property would get damaged, chaos would ensue, eventually causing the police and emergency services to arrive on the scene. It makes me wonder whether this current bubble is a form of youth rebellion, a sort of digital quarantine rave.
Other side of the coin: Ben Armstrong, aka Bitboy Crypto
I am sure that many of you are aware of the Bitboy Crypto YouTube channel as it claims to be the largest crypto channel in all the interwebs. The content is undoubtedly to be taken with a grain of salt as its purpose is largely for entertaining. Indeed, many a fresh retail investor has fallen victim to his shoutout of this or that project as the pumping price actions often coincide with the posting of his videos.
Ben does however make some relevant points, such as the fact that Dogecoin is a stubborn industry verteran that has been around almost as long as Bitcoin and Litecoin. He also makes a very pertinent point in that a substantial amount of price action is due to the habits of young and impressionable investors and this should not be underestimated. Do not forget that these are the future investors and they will ultimately define the markets in the years and decades to come.
Final notes
It is interesting to see how these two influential players in the market arrive at such contrasting viewpoints.
A fun coin like Dogecoin has no place in the top 5 of a mature market, especially not a coin with such an apparent lack of development and technical support. In a mature market, the top 5 spots should represent projects with strong fundamentals and use cases, projects such as digital gold, logistics, identity management, decentralised finance protocols, and so on. The fact that a meme occupies one of these spots shows that we are still very early in this game but there is also a very bumpy road ahead of us yet.
There are two sides to every coin. Up to now, we've seen a lot of the furry little Shiba Inu's cute head, but ask yourself, when, if ever, did you see its tail? When the doggy does lift its tail and takes a dump on our market, it won't be a pretty sight.