After being upgraded to proof-of-stake PoS on Thursday by Ethereum’s Merge event, Dogecoin DOGE (1), a cryptocurrency inspired by memes, is now formally ranked as the second-largest proof-of-work cryptocurrency in terms of market cap.
Dogecoin, a popular meme coin, is still comfortably ahead of third-place Ethereum Classic ETC, which has a market cap of $4.69 billion; Litecoin LTC, which has a market cap of $4.01 billion; and Monero XMR (2), which has a market cap of $2.65 billion. However, Bitcoin BTC is still far ahead of Dogecoin, which has a market cap of $7.83 billion.
While many Dogecoin supporters are still amazed that DOGE is the second-largest cryptocurrency and that the hashtag #DogeFam (3) is trending, it is not for everyone. While emphasizing the need for eliminating the “useless coins” from public view, one Twitter user who responded to a tweet about the announcement questioned how people could take the cryptocurrency industry seriously with a meme coin so near the top.
According to the official Twitter account of the Ethereum PoW hard fork chain, ETHW, which is now trading at $13.64 on CoinMarketCap, many people believe that Dogecoin may soon find itself in competition with ETHPoW (4). ETHW is the Ethereum PoW hard fork chain. Ethereum’s switch to PoS has increased pressure on cryptocurrency networks using PoW to switch to a more sustainable consensus mechanism.
The pressure on Bitcoin to continue to support the PoW system in the long run and its resistance to making the switch to PoS itself will be a big concern. The switch to a proof-of-stake protocol was discussed by the Dogecoin Foundation when Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum and a Dogecoin Foundation adviser, hinted at it in September 2021.
While the Dogecoin Foundation presented its Dogecoin trail map in December 2021, which suggested creating a community stake version of Dogecoin that approximated PoS, All Dogecoin users will be able to stake DOGE and receive additional tokens in exchange for helping the network. However, since then, little progress has been made, and the Dogecoin website indicates that it is still at the proposal stage.
DOGE is now priced at $0.06 (5).
