Ethereum (ETH +0.75%) and Dogecoin (DOGE +0.66%) are back in the headlines this summer for a simple reason: Both coins are rallying, and investors want to know which is more likely to keep sprinting.
Ethereum trades for more than $3,700 after a brisk 50% climb in the past 30 days, buoyed by newfound demand for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and a well-received network upgrade. Meanwhile, during the past month, Dogecoin has bounced by 37% to reach $0.24 on speculation the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might green-light a Dogecoin ETF later this year.
At first glance, doubling seems easier for a meme coin than for a multibillion-dollar smart contract platform. But price alone doesn't decide which asset will hit the mark first. Let's evaluate each to see which has the better shot of doubling.
Ethereum is finally showing its strength
Ethereum is at the start of its comeback arc, and a big driver for that is institutional capital flowing into its chain via regulated financial products.
Ethereum ETFs have absorbed more than $4 billion of Ether coins since July 2, including a record $533 million on July 22. ETF and staking demand could potentially remove millions of coins from circulation during the next 12 months, creating a supply crunch that forces the price upward.
CRYPTO: ETH
Key Data Points
Technology advances are part of the reason new capital is eager to be on the chain. The Pectra upgrade, completed in early May, expanded wallet functionality, improved scaling, and trimmed gas (user) fees.
Image source: Getty Images.
Those tweaks let staking pools operate at greater scale, thereby promising higher yields for participants and encouraging more long-term lockups rather than short-term positioning for yield. The upgrade also reinforced Ethereum's lead in decentralized finance (DeFi); the chain still hosts about half of all total value locked (TVL) across the sector, a status that keeps protocol fees flowing back to the chain's stakers.
Therefore, Etherereum doesn't need anything approaching a speculative mania to double from $3,700 to $7,400. It only needs ETF inflows to continue to stay positive, staking yields to inch higher, and the DeFi base to keep paying rent -- all of which are, at least for the near term, practically guaranteed.
Dogecoin is a bet on market froth, not fundamentals
At the moment, Dogecoin's odds of doubling in value rest on hope that the market will choose it during a state of speculative fervor. But that might not be the case forever.
The SEC is currently evaluating whether to approve a Dogecoin ETF, and the decision could arrive before the end of the year. Inflows into a new vehicle would almost certainly juice DOGE's price, at least temporarily. And, over the long term, if there's any kind of passive bidding associated with the ETF -- like via investors foolishly accumulating Dogecoin in their retirement accounts -- it could create a lot of upward pressure on the price over time.
The main problem with Dogecoin is the same as always: It has no fundamentals or utility, and never will. That means it simply can't compete with coins that are in active development and being used to accomplish tasks. Furthermore, its supply situation is unfavorable over the long term.
Roughly 5 billion new DOGE tokens hit the market every year via static block rewards, making for a 3.4% supply growth rate rate that erodes scarcity unless fresh demand keeps pace. The chain still lacks smart-contract functionality, institutional partnerships, or a DeFi ecosystem -- and it won't ever have any of those, as they aren't in active development by anyone.
Assuming the SEC approves an ETF, and social media enthusiasm for the coin reignites, Dogecoin could indeed sprint from today's price of about $0.24 to $0.48. And it is absolutely possible that frothy market conditions could send its price soaring far above that. Over a long enough period, it is almost certain that it will happen again, though the price will probably crash back down shortly thereafter. But with Ethereum's multichannel momentum, Dogecoin's single-thread hope for doubling looks fragile in comparison.
