After the Merge, which happened in September 2022, when Ethereum moved from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol, Dogecoin became the second biggest cryptocurrency to be using PoW.

While this may surprise many, Dogecoin has been comfortably sitting in TOP 10 for several months now. At one point, it was even close to getting to TOP 3 of all cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. That is definitely not a surprise since it has the backing of such celebrities as Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg or Mark Cuban.

But since the craze around meme coins and canine-related projects has faded, Dogecoin mostly reappeared in media connected to two rumors. The first one was the potential move of Dogecoin to PoS, just like Ethereum. The second was the connection to Twitter and its possible implementation as a native Twitter Coin, since Musk owns Twitter. But are these rumors true?

Impact of the Merge and Elon Musk

As was mentioned in the introduction, after the Merge, Dogecoin has become the second biggest cryptocurrency that uses Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, right after Bitcoin . Many believe that this consensus protocol is terrible for the environment dueren to mining. PoW cryptocurrencies Often accused of being carbon heavy, wasteful and contributing to climate change.

And ever since Ethereum has moved to PoS, Dogecoin has seen the emergence of such accusations. While Bitcoin is definitely used to these accusations, Dogecoin has always been in the shadow of BTC and ETH. But now, more people are asking questions connected to the The ecological side of Dogecoin .

Elon Musk and Dogecoin. Source: NewsBTC

Being a fork of Bitcoin, Dogecoin is predisposed to be using PoW mining to verify transactions and include them in the blocks. However, after Elon Musk announced that Tesla stopped buying Bitcoin, accepting it as a form of payment and even sold some of its stake Due to environmental concerns, many believed that Elon Musk would stop supporting Dogecoin for the same reasons as well.

The contrary is true. Apparently, Elon Musk has been working closely with the team of developers of Dogecoin, to ensure that its environmental footprint will be lowered in the near future. And it turns out that his efforts were worthwhile.

According to Forex Suggest , due to his efforts as well as the works of Dogecoin developers, the cryptocurrency was able to decrease its carbon footprint by 25 % in the last year. In 2021, Dogecoin was expected to have released about 1,423 tons of emissions, While last year this number was computed to be around 1,063 tons.

Is move to Proof-of-Stake real?

Yet, many still believe that this step might not be sufficient, which is a reason why the rumors around Dogecoin moving to PoS gained more attention in the past weeks. The community around Dogecoin has been rather surprised by this possibility. in rather quickly and tried to clarify the situation around its consensus protocol.

Michi Lumin, principal engineer for Dogecoin Foundation, has reassured that Dogecoin is not moving to PoS. He mentioned that while this possibility might be studied, there is no entity that can single handedly decide to move to PoS without the validators approval of this move. He said the following:

“It is not possible for, nor is it planned for, an individual, organization, or body to ‘move’ or ‘shift’ or ‘change’ Dogecoin to PoS. All that can be done is: it can be outlined, perhaps coded , and given to the community (and validators) to decide to take up or not.”

Lumin also added that the notion that Dogecoin is on its way to move to PoS is ridiculous and only people who are farming for attention, likes, follows or views are spreading these words. He also reiterated that it cannot and will not be done by force .

Vitalik Buterin Says DOGE Should Switch to Proof-of-Stake. Source: Financial Watch

Yet, many still believe that Dogecoin is poised to move to PoS. They claim that the fact that Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, is the advisor to Dogecoin, can help the project move away from PoW to PoS . questions that would need to be answered before any of this is even remotely on the table. For instance, what would happen to the network security, where would the yield be coming from or would DOGE, the native token of Dogecoin, be labeled as a security?

Dogecoin ecosystem

Moreover, the developers around Dogecoin might be more inclined to improve its whole ecosystem first. While Dogecoin does have an ecosystem that is big, there are numerous projects that are much smaller, but their ecosystems are much larger. In this sense, Dogecoin is definitely not the biggest dog in the hood, as many canine and meme inspired projects have far more developed infrastructures and networks.

The whole Dogecoin ecosystem encompasses projects from various fields. These are for instance NFTs , DeFi, gaming, DAOs or bridges. You can also find wallets or tools being built on Dogecoin and its ecosystem.

Among the most significant and famous projects is DogeChain , which is a layer-2 solution built on top of Dogecoin. Its goal is to bring more DeFi and NFTs to Dogecoin. Autobark, Coin98, DogeBets, Hound or OnlyMoons are part of the whole ecosystem , among many others.

Yet, Dogecoin does not have the biggest ecosystem or infrastructure built around it. Maybe that is one of the reasons why the latest announcement of the Dogecoin Foundation was made. In it, the members of the foundation stated that Dogecoin core developers will receive 5 million DOGE. This is around $450,000 at the time of writing, which should be dedicated to the development of the Dogecoin ecosystem and projects built on or around it.

Will Dogecoin become a “Twitter coin”?

The impact of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter on Dogecoin. Source: Tearsheet

Yet, what can really help the coin to thrive would be the announcement that Dogecoin becomes the official cryptocurrency of Twitter. And many expect this since the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, is a huge fan of Dogecoin, who has been supporting it on many occasions.

This, however, seems to be only a rumor or a wishful thinking of some holders of the DOGE token. There are no clear signs that DOGE could or should be implemented as the official payment for Twitter. Yes, it might be expected that something of This sort can and probably will happen in the future, but it is unlikely that Dogecoin would be the first and sole cryptocurrency that would serve as a payment system within this social network.

conclusion

Dogecoin is definitely one of the best-known cryptocurrencies out there. Yet, its current status only relies on Elon Musk and the whole side of it being a joke or a meme. The project needs to seriously develop if it wants to remain among the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. Whether that is moving from PoW to PoS or improving its ecosystem is up to its developers and the community to decide, but the rumors around Dogecoin are only bulking up.

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