Dogecoin. In the week after the 2024 presidential election, the coin’s value jumped 250%. (Image: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Rockets aren’t the only thing Elon Musk is sending into the stratosphere.

After a three-year plummet, dogecoin is blasting off again, jumping 250% since the election of Donald Trump – part of a broader wave of optimism in the industry, due to Trump’s courting of crypto advocates during his campaign.

Trump’s informal appointment of Musk to what he calls the Department of Government Efficiency – D.O.G.E for short – also helped pump the dog-themed meme coin.

This isn’t the first time Musk, who styles himself as “the Dogefather,” has fueled interest in dogecoin.

In May 2021, its price shot up in anticipation of Musk’s guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” During one skit, Musk played a financial analyst in conversation with a Weekend Update host, who repeatedly asked him, “What is dogecoin?” After some obfuscation, Musk’s character finally admitted that it was a hustle. The price of the coin went into a freefall. Just over a year later, it had shed over 90% of its peak value.

The losses hit small investors hard. In 2022, one of them filed a class action lawsuit against Musk for market manipulation and insider trading, though the case was dismissed in August 2024.

Why has dogecoin – a meme coin that was never meant to be taken seriously as an investment – seen such extreme swings in value?

We’re all in this together

Dogecoin was launched in 2013 to spoof bitcoin and a slew of other cryptocurrencies that were claiming to disrupt the traditional world of finance. Two strangers from across the globe met online, copied the code of an existing coin, and branded it with the already popular Doge internet meme – a picture of a Shiba Inu dog surrounded by fragments of broken English: “wow much coin.”

Although their main goal was to make the coin pointless and undesirable, it became one of the most popular and enduring cryptocurrencies on the market.

Following dogecoin’s previous surge in 2021, I studied how its fervent network of influencers and everyday investors worked together to draw tremendous attention – and capital – to the joke currency.

Elon Musk’s 2021 appearance on ‘Saturday Night Live’ caused the price of dogecoin to tumble.

To understand the appeal of these absurd investments, you have to look at the time and energy that users invest into these networks and the rewards, both financial and social, they get in return.

Meme coins are collaborative enterprises. Members of these online communities have an economic incentive to become outspoken boosters: The more the value of dogecoin rises, the more their investments grow. But they also receive social validation from other meme coin investors when they pump up the coin.

In other words, behind every meme coin is a collective of strangers on a communal mission to make more money.

Dogecoin and its imitators have been described by their leadership as crypto movements, shared journeys and community-owned projects. Beyond branding the assets with culturally resonant images, whether it’s a Shiba Inu dog or Pepe the Frog, successful crypto ventures are characterized by complex webs of trust. Trust in the technology. Trust in its potential for future appreciation. And trust that those holding power in the networks won’t exploit the rest.

This loyalty is woven among a global network of users who collaborate around the clock to promote their coin and demonstrate their unwavering commitment to its success.

In times of price appreciation, the collective buzzes with elation.

During price dips, community members mutually reinforce their comrades’ – and their own – beliefs that this is just a bump in the road and that their collective efforts will eventually lead to a handsome payoff. Even in the coldest of crypto winters, this ritualistic behavior helps these speculative communities endure. Community serves as a substitute for financial loss.

The investment strategies in these communities – and the conviction in their payoff – involve repeating and reposting what others have said, like any traditional internet meme.

Trolling traditional valuation

The real value of meme coins cannot be understood in the same way as traditional assets, such as stocks and physical commodities. These types of assets have fundamentals, such as a company’s financial statements, or public demand for basic goods, from coffee to oil.

Conversely, the fundamentals of meme coins are reflected in their network activity, such as daily active users, and less concrete metrics, such as social sentiment and mindshare – how much public awareness a coin has generated compared with its rivals.

Of course, the valuations of traditional assets are also affected by these social factors. The difference is that meme coins offer little by way of productive activity. They add nothing to the economy. Occasionally, their leadership will build financial services around them, but these are generally added as afterthoughts, especially as a way to drum up more speculative excitement.

Meme coins troll the traditional conventions of valuation and mock the edicts and dogmas of mainstream investors.

And that’s exactly the point.

Participation in meme coin communities – or any crypto community, for that matter – entails embracing an alternative economic experience. They are speculative sandboxes for playing outside of the conventional rules of investment.

Who let the Doge out?

Musk is the quintessential meme coin influencer.

As the richest man in the world, he’s viewed by many as a paragon of savvy investing. His massive following extends far beyond dogecoin’s social network. And his promotional efforts are playful – so playful that the judge in his class-action case dismissed his dogecoin tweets as mere “puffery” and that “no reasonable investor could rely upon them.”

Dogecoin previously reached the peak of its memetic momentum when Musk appeared on “Saturday Night Live.” Now, instead of sitting at the Weekend Update news desk cracking jokes, he’s sitting in Trump’s office advising the president-elect. In other words, dogecoin’s memetic resonance has ascended from pop culture to politics, helping it capture a bigger slice of the public’s mindshare.

While dogecoin has specifically benefited from Musk’s proximity to Trump, the broader crypto market is leaping with optimism for a crypto-friendly administration. Speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in July, the GOP candidate ensured he’d make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.” After pouring $131 million into this election cycle, the crypto industry can now claim 274 pro-crypto members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 20 pro-crypto U.S. senators.

Between Musk buddying up with Trump and a shifting regulatory environment, the dog can once again run free.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on Nov. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. Biden continued the tradition of inviting the newly elected president to meet at the White House after Trump won the presidential election on Nov. 5. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump to the White House Wednesday, a tradition between incoming and outgoing American leaders, though the courtesy was not extended to Biden after he won the 2020 election.

The pair met behind closed doors in the Oval Office for most of the meeting that lasted just under two hours. Biden’s Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and Trump’s incoming counterpart, Susie Wiles, joined the president and president-elect.

Biden had been seeking reelection against Trump until late July, when Biden dropped his bid. Vice President Kamala Harris lost the race to Trump after just over 100 days of campaigning as the Democratic nominee.

Harris did not attend the meeting, according to the White House.

In brief remarks before cameras, Biden congratulated his predecessor who will again take the oath of office in January as the nation’s 47th president.

“Well, Mr. President-elect, former president, Donald, congratulations,” Biden said, as Trump interjected with “Thank you very much, Joe.”

“And looking forward to having a, like I said, smooth transition, do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need,” Biden continued. “And we’re gonna get a chance to talk about some of that today.”

Trump again thanked Biden and responded “And politics is tough. And it’s, many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today. And I appreciate it very much, a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as it can get. I very much appreciate that, Joe,” Trump said.

A ‘substantive’ conversation

First lady Jill Biden joined the president in greeting Trump and presented a handwritten letter of congratulations and offer for transition assistance addressed to incoming first lady Melania Trump, according to the White House.

The meeting got underway just after 11 a.m. Eastern, and the press was ushered out after the brief welcoming remarks and photo opportunity. Biden and Trump finished their private discussion at roughly 1 p.m. Eastern.

Neither addressed a large gathering of reporters and photographers outside afterward.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden and Trump had “a very good back and forth.”

“(Biden) wants you all to know that the president-elect was gracious, came with a detailed set of questions, it was, again, substantive” Jean-Pierre said at the daily press briefing.

Jean-Pierre declined to provide the meeting’s specifics but said “the length of the meeting tells you they had an in-depth conversation on an array of issues.”

Trump did not invite Biden to the White House following his 2020 presidential election win, nor did he attend his successor’s inauguration that occurred just 14 days after a mob of his supporters violently tried to stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory.

The president-elect’s transition team did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s inquiries on why Trump did not invite Biden to the White House in 2020.

Musk, Ramaswamy to head new initiative

The president-elect continues to announce numerous Cabinet and staff positions, stacking his administration with staunch loyalists.

Late Tuesday, Trump announced he named billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy to what he describes as a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or shortened to “DOGE,” also the name for a popular internet dog meme and cryptocurrency in the last decade.

Trump said the new entity would function outside of government.

“To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before,” Trump said in a statement.

Musk was also present, sitting in the front row during Trump’s visit with House Republicans earlier Wednesday.

Also on Tuesday night, Trump announced Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his pick for secretary of Defense, a position that requires managing hundreds of billions in Pentagon spending.

Trump endorses Johnson

Trump joined House Republicans Wednesday morning before his meeting with Biden at the White House. At a hotel near the U.S. Capitol, Trump received a standing ovation from GOP lawmakers, according to congressional pool reports.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, introduced Trump, calling him a “singular figure in American history,” according to congressional pool reports. 

House Republicans are also planning to have their leadership elections late Wednesday, but it’s expected that Johnson will be selected to continue the role, although an official vote for the speaker’s gavel will take place in January.

At the meeting, Trump threw his support behind Johnson to continue in his role as House speaker, according to NBC News.

During the meeting, Trump touted GOP wins in keeping control of the lower chamber. Although Republicans are on track to hold their slim majority, The Associated Press, the news organization that States Newsroom relies upon for race calls based on decades of experience, has not called the House for Republicans though it might happen soon.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Republicans have 216 seats, just two short of the 218 seats needed for control. Democrats have 207 seats, with 12 races still to be called.

Trump also joked about wanting to run for another term in office — something that the U.S. Constitution prohibits, as presidents are limited to only serving two terms. 

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you do something,” Trump told members, who laughed, according to pool reports.

Democrats ready to push back

Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Pete Aguilar said Wednesday that Democrats are ready to work with the incoming administration in a bipartisan manner, but are also prepared to push back on efforts to further restrict reproductive rights, such as a national abortion ban, and any changes to the Affordable Care Act.

“We’re clear-eyed about the challenge ahead of us,” Aguilar, Democrat of California, said.

He acknowledged the failure of Democrats to regain control of the House.

“I think it’s appropriate for the current caucus to reflect on what happened, to listen to listen to our constituents, to listen to American people, to listen to our members, to gather data, and then to chart a path forward,” he said.

Aguilar added that Democrats plan to look at voter data to understand the issues important to their voting bloc.

“I don’t want to have broad generalizations of any group or geographic or otherwise, without that data in front of me,” he said. “I think it’s very clear to us that for people with two jobs, the economy is, gas and groceries and rent. We’ll need to speak to those issues if we’re going to be the party that speaks to our community members and people working, everyday Americans, then we need to speak to those issues, and … that’s on us to communicate.”