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A conversation around Dogecoin emerged on X after a DogeOS executive claimed that the cryptocurrency has almost no builders given its size. Community member Mishaboar defended DOGE's original purpose as a simple, permissionless currency: "DOGE Was Never Meant to Be Ethereum or Solana."
The conversation began when DogeOS CSO, who goes by BuidrJ on X, claimed that Dogecoin, which has over 10 million holders, has barely anyone building for it. This didn't sit well with members of the Dogecoin community, including core developer Chromia X, who pushed back on this claim, saying, "It does to me if you're erasing the work I've done."
Dogecoin's primary purpose has always been to be used as a currency. Billy Markus, co-creator of Dogecoin with Jackson Palmer, acted as a solo developer for the first Dogecoin Core releases. In 2014, Billy and Jackson left Dogecoin development, and a new development team was formed, consisting of a group of maintainers coordinating the work of several contributors.
To explain his point, BuidrJ cited that DOGE has a $12.3 billion market cap and almost none of it is put to work on-chain compared with Ethereum, which has $46.4 billion in DeFi, about 16% of its market cap, and Solana, which has $5.7 billion in DeFi, about 10% of its market cap, while Dogecoin has about $11 million, under 0.1% of its market cap.
BuidrJ stated this is a 100x gap, saying "we are 100x behind other blue chips," adding that "It's not that DOGE holders don't want to deploy on chain, it's that DOGE has never had on-chain utility that reinforces TVL growth. That's reflected in the price of all 3 assets."
Mishaboar disagreed with this claim, challenging the idea that DeFi capital defines Dogecoin's success: "Of course, you are defining Dogecoin's success by how much capital people deposit into DeFi protocols, which introduce varying degrees of additional risk for their users."
Dogecoin was never meant to be Ethereum
"Dogecoin was never meant to be Ethereum or Solana," Mishaboar wrote, adding that DOGE "grew up (for some) with the promise of being a funny decentralized, permissionless currency. Others saw (and still see it) as something worth hoarding."
Mishaboar noted that Dogecoin's simplicity remains one of its greatest strengths: "But in the end, simplicity is one of its greatest strengths, not a deficiency. That's also what attracted some of your own heroes to it in the first place."
"Also, TVL is certainly not a measure of how good a currency is," Mishaboar stated. He also noted that locking Dogecoin in DeFi apps doesn't automatically make it more useful or more valuable for the average user.
Mishaboar highlighted the current need for rigorous code review and security research for Dogecoin. "It also needs more open-source node implementations, open-source private and trust-minimized lightweight wallets reviewed by highly capable engineers, and friendly interfaces to the network that do not try at every step to undermine a user's privacy or the safety of their money," he added.